Romania’s Constitutional Court asks president to designate different PM

Romania’s Constitutional Court ruled on Monday, February 24, that president Klaus Iohannis should nominate another prime minister, who can get majority support in the Parliament, G4Media.ro reported. The decision was taken with seven votes to two.

The Constitutional Court’s decision comes after the Social Democratic Party (PSD) challenged the president’s decision to appoint Liberal leader Ludovic Orban, who had just been dismissed by the Parliament through a no-confidence motion, to form a new cabinet.

Orban went to the Parliament with the same list of ministers that had been part of his first cabinet, which got the Parliament’s confidence vote at the beginning of November 2019 and was dismissed three months later, at the beginning of February 2020. President Klaus Iohannis and PM Ludovic Orban thus wanted to force triggering early elections.

The Parliament was scheduled to cast its vote on the new Government on Monday, February 24, but the procedure was postponed due to lack of quorum, after PSD, Pro Romania, and ALDE announced their MPs would not take part.

The presidents of the Parliament’s two chambers, one of whom is PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu, challenged the president’s decision to once again appoint Ludovic Orban for prime minister, arguing that it breached, directly or indirectly, three constitutional principles. Meanwhile, the Presidency argued that the president is the only one who can nominate a new prime minister and doesn’t have to share this attribution with any other public authority. The president also pointed to the precedent set by former president Traian Basescu who appointed Emil Boc to form a new Government in December 2009 after he had been dismissed by emergency ordinance in October the same year.

However, the context is rather different. Basescu managed to create a new parliamentary majority in December 2009, after he was re-elected president. Meanwhile, Iohannis is looking to have two governments rejected by the Parliament so that he can dissolve the Parliament and call for early elections hoping that his former party, the National Liberal Party (PNL), would thus get the parliamentary majority it needs to rule.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea)