The Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) gave a favorable opinion on the draft bill on pardoning some prisoners, but with two observations.

CSM believes that the maximum prison sentence for which the prisoners could benefit from pardon should be of three years, not five years as provided by the draft bill. The magistrates and prosecutors also think that minors with convictions should also benefit from the pardon law, reports local Mediafax.

“They targeted the correlation with some provisions of the Criminal Code on the rules on punishments. They also wanted the law to take into account that minors are also subjected to educational measures, and thus this type of sanctions should also be taken into account. Also, the pardoned punishments’ limits should be reduced,” said Cristina Tarcea, president of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, at the end of the CSM meeting.

In mid-January, the Ministry of Justice put up for public debate an emergency ordinance that was establishing what categories of prisoners would benefit from pardon. However, at the end of the same month, the Government decided to let the Parliament vote on this draft bill, to which it also brought some changes.

In the explanatory memorandum, the draft bill is justified by poor prison conditions, the overcrowding in Romanian prisons, and the European Court of Human Right’s decisions against the Romanian state.

The emergency ordinance on pardon, which was put up for public debate in mid-January alongside the emergency ordinance that would have changed the Criminal Code, triggered massive protests in Romania. While the emergency ordinance amending the criminal laws was adopted by the Government and then repealed, the one on pardon was turned into a draft bill and is to be voted in the Parliament.

ECHR obliges Romania to pay EUR 1.6 mln for prison conditions in 2016

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com