Romania's former President Traian Basescu wants wider pardoning

Former Romanian President Traian Basescu submitted yesterday a couple of amendments to the law on pardoning, which is currently under debate in the Parliament. Basescu, who is now a senator, wants all sentences under 10 years to be pardoned while the draft bill launched into debate by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) only aimed to pardon sentences under 5 years, reports local News.ro. The former President motivated his proposal saying that the version in which only sentences up to 5 years were pardoned would only lead to higher sentences against people considered “undesirable”. Basescu also wants the sentences of convicted mothers to be reduced by half, even if they were sent to jail for corruption. He motivated this proposal by saying that in this case the children’s interests come first and that the current form of the law, which only reduces half of the sentences of women who haven’t been convicted for corruption, is unconstitutional. The former President also thinks that the convicts over 60 should also have half of their sentences removed. Moreover, Basescu proposed that the pardoned people get three years to pay the damages they caused instead of one as the initial bill provides. editor@romania-insider.com