Romania's president challenges new criminal code at Constitutional Court

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis notified the Constitutional Court about the bills changing the criminal code and the law for combating corruption, recently adopted by the Parliament. The president argued that the Parliament didn’t respect the Constitution when adopting the two laws and that both bills include unconstitutional provisions. The two laws were adopted by the Chamber of Deputies at the beginning of July with a narrow majority. They include several controversial provisions, including redefining abuse of office and partly decriminalizing some corruption offences. The High Court of Cassation and Justice as well as opposition parties PNL and USR have also challenged the new criminal code at the Constitutional Court. The Court will rule on these challenges on September 25. Romanian president says Criminal Code changes are useless, toxic EC will make sure that Romania’s Criminal Code changes respect EU laws Council of Europe calls on Romania to wait for Venice Commission’s opinion on Criminal Code editor@romania-insider.com