Romanian lawmakers fail to amend abuse of office bill in line with Constitutional Court's recommendation

The legal committee of the Chamber of Deputies passed on April 4 the amendments to the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code as proposed by the Government, although this means that the lawmakers failed to address the Constitutional Court's decision to set a quantitative threshold for the criminal prosecution of the abuse of office.

The failure may prompt objections from the Constitutional Court, more delays and possibly costly sanctions related to the disbursement of Resilience Facility money. It can not be ruled out that the ruling coalition did this on purpose, intending to deem the draft law invalid and complicate the prosecution of the abuse of office cases.

Previously in the Senate, the ruling coalition endorsed a threshold of EUR 50,000 – which prompted protests as it would allegedly leave the door open for corruption. None of the ruling coalition took responsibility for the proposed EUR 50,000 threshold, but, on the contrary, they all promised to support a much lower threshold in the Chamber of Deputies.

The Government, in its turn, explained that it avoided including such a threshold in the draft amendments exactly to allow the ruling coalition's lawmakers to make a decision together.

Explaining the situation, the ruling coalition's spokesperson Ionut Stroe failed to articulate a reasonable or at least coherent explanation.

"We hope it's not out of Parliament, probably the Court is going to rule. There have been instances where the Constitutional Court has changed the decision. Similarly, the Constitutional Court may accept the Parliament's decision, there are countries where there is no such threshold for criminalising abuse of office. It's not a game show, it's an active debate," Stroe said, according to News.ro.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Sabin Cirstoveanu)