Senate rejects Romanian president’s objections to law tightening sanctions against extremism

The Romanian Senate on December 8 overwhelmingly rejected the president's objections to the bill on combating extremism, also known as the Vexler law. There were 75 votes for maintaining the amendments referred by president Nicusor Dan to the Constitutional Court in a first step and then returned to lawmakers for a second review, G4media.ro reported.

There were only 34 votes against, or in favour of president Dan’s objections about the alleged lack of clarity in some provisions, and four abstentions.

The voting list showed that the senators of the governing coalition voted to reject Nicusor Dan's request for reconsideration: 34 from PSD, 16 from PNL, 14 from USR, and 9 from UDMR. Only 23 senators of the opposition, the isolationist party AUR, and 6 unaffiliated senators voted in favour of the president's request.

The project, initiated by the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, MP Silviu Vexler, was adopted by Parliament in June. The normative act was challenged, on June 20, at the CCR by parliamentarians from AUR, SOS Romania, and POT, the Court rejecting the complaint.

On July 14, president Nicuşor Dan, in turn, notified the CCR – and this time, the Court rejected the objections of unconstitutionality.

On December 4, the president sent the law back to Parliament for reexamination, assessing that the current form of the normative act could lead to "amplification of tensions." He considered that, in its current form, the law is insufficiently clear in defining some crimes.

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