The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) established on Wednesday that there is no legal conflict of a constitutional nature between state powers following the adoption of the government emergency ordinance for the modification of the Criminal Codes.

CCR President Valer Dorneanu announced at the end of the Wednesday meeting that it was found that there is no conflict neither between the judicial authority and the Government, nor between Parliament and the Government.

“In respect to the nature of the conflict between Parliament and Government it has been said that in this case the Government assumed a legislating power not stated in the Constitution and exaggerated in using the emergency ordinance. It is true that, according to the separation of powers principle, Parliament is the one having the legislating sovereignty and the competence to issue primary organic laws. The Government usually hasn’t such a competence. Exceptionally, however, even under the Constitution (…), the Government can be delegated by the legislature to issue simple or emergency ordinances. (…) In this respect, there is not conflict, because the Government has acted legally within its competence area of issuing ordinances,” the CCR head said.

Previously, he had pointed out that the repeal of GEO No 13/2017 could not stop the ongoing constitutional process.

“Several times, the Constitutional Court has pronounced even in respect to some conflicts notified by the former Ponta Government. Dropping or repealing a normative act cannot stop us from its constitutional process. Therefore, the GEO 13 abrogation has no relevance. This abrogation can have consequences tomorrow, when we judge the ordinance constitutionality,” Dorneanu maintained.

The CCR President underscored that not any conflict between authorities meets the condition of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature, but only when a side or the sides assume powers, duties, competencies in the activity area of the other authority or when an authority declines its competence, doesn’t exercise its role, according to its duties, or refuses to fulfill its role.

The Constitutional Court of Romania has discussed the requests of President Klaus Iohannis and Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) head Mariana Ghena, on finding a conflict between state powers following the adoption of the government emergency ordinance for the modification of the Criminal Codes. </s> Romania’s five-month-old Social Democrat (PSD) government defeated a parliamentary motion of no-confidence on Wednesday while thousands rallied outside to demand its resignation.

The centrist opposition called the vote, accusing the cabinet of prime minister Viorica Dancila and the ruling party of trying to weaken anti-corruption laws and institutions.

It followed a preliminary jail sentence handed down on PSD chief Liviu Dragnea last week for graft offences. Dragnea holds a tight grip on the party and is seen as the de-facto government head and architect of its policy.

The move to topple the government was doomed to fail. Only 166 deputies from the fragmented opposition supported the motion, well short of the 233 votes – 50 per cent of deputies plus one – required under the constitution for no-confidence motions to succeed.

The PSD and its small ally Alde – which together hold 249 of the 465 seats in parliament – did not vote, confident that the opposition would fail to reach the threshold.

About 4,000 people chanted outside parliament during the debate, blowing whistles and vuvuzela horns.

Raluca Turcan, deputy president of the centrist National Liberal Party, accused the PSD of undermining a European Union-backed drive to tackle corruption. “Today’s motion has been about the dismissal of Dragnea’s regime and his declaration of war against the European Union, ” she told parliament.

In a speech frequently interrupted by opposition legislators shouting “Resignation! Resignation!, Ms Dancila, the prime minister, denounced the attempt to topple her government as “lacking rational arguments, logic and any realistic reasoning”.

PSD lawmakers have pushed a judicial overhaul through parliament that effectively puts magistrates under political control. It also changes the penal handbook that could affect thousands of criminal cases, risking a deeper rift between eastern and western EU members.

Both legal changes are on hold pending challenges filed to the constitutional court, but PSD deputies had said they expected to approve them by mid-July.

Arguments about how to fight corruption in one of Europe’s most graft-prone states have dominated Romanian politics since its 2007 EU entry and magistrates have often complained of political pressures.

Dragnea, who is also speaker of the lower house of parliament, was found guilty by the supreme court last week of keeping two women on the payroll of a state agency in 2006-2013 even though they were employed by his party.

Romania’s most powerful politician, he has repeatedly denied all the charges and is expected to appeal the verdict, which relates to when he was a county council chief. – Reuters </s> President of the Senate notifyed the Constitutional Court on a judicial conflict between the Government and DNA

Thursday, February 9, 2017 Share

The President of the Senate, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, decided to notify the Constitutional Court in order to find the existence of a judicial conflict of a constitutional nature between the Government of Romania and the Public Ministry, through the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).



"The President of the Senate, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, decided to notify the Constitutional Court of Romania [CCR], based on the provisions of art. 146 let. e) in the Constitution of Romania, in order to find the existence of a judicial conflict of a constitutional nature between the Government of Romania, on the one hand, the Public Ministry, through the National Anticorruption Directorate, a structure of the judicial authority, on the other hand. The judicial conflict of a constitutional nature which the President of the Senate brings into CCR's attention was generated by the DNA prosecutors' demarches, consisting of investigating the circumstances in which the draft of the Emergency Ordinance referring to amendment and addition of the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure was drawn up, which created institutional blockings," shows a press release of the Senate, sent on Wednesday.



Calin Popescu-Tariceanu believes that, proceeding on investigating the opportuneness, circumstances, and context of drawing up the normative act, "representatives of the Public Ministry usurped some of the Government's competencies, through the Justice Ministry, which led to the appearance of the current judicial conflict of a constitutional nature, in the sense of the CCR decisions."



"GEO No. 13/2017 approaches a topic of criminal policy of the Romanian state, or the measures of criminal policy are found exclusively in the competency of Parliament and Government, other public authorities, including the judicial authority, can express points of views on this matter, can and must be consulted, but cannot have the interference power, discretionary interference, including criminal investigation, nor of Parliament's structures, nor the Government's structures," the notification sent to the CCR mentions.



At the end of the notification addressed to the CCR, the President of the Senate requests that decision on which the Court will be pronounced unblock the conflict, "ruling that, in the future, the prosecution bodies cannot investigate the opportunneness of drawing up normative acts." </s> JusMin Toader announces move to axe anti-corruption head Laura Codruta Kovesi

Friday, February 23, 2018 Share

Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader announced on Thursday that he will start procedures for removing from office Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi.

Minister Tudorel said that the making of the report on the managerial activity of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) was carried out based on the very broad debates in the public space in the last year, debates that have "deeply" divided the public opinion.



"The realization of this report is completed based on the debates that have gotten a special amplitude in the public space in the last year, (...) that have deeply divided the public opinion and have raised personal attacks at unprecedented odds in the recent history of Romania (...), that have polarised the attention of the European and international forums on Romania, have unleashed evaluation mechanisms that have never before been used against Romania (...), by even threatening the rule of law," said Toader.

He added that Chief Prosecutor of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi had "an excessively authoritarian behaviour" when she "personally" supervised the investigation related to OUG 13/2017.

According to him, an unprecedented situation within the relations between public authorities in Romania have been recorded in 2017, in which the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) was sanctioned by the Constitutional Court for disloyal behaviour.



"First of all, we retained an unprecedented situation within relations between public authorities in Romania. I repeat, an unprecedented situation of the public authorities' relations. In only one year, 2017, three constitutional legal conflicts were recorded, conflicts that led to the National Anti-corruption Directorate, through its leadership, being summoned in front of the constitutional administrative court. Three legal conflicts of a constitutional nature, in which the Constitutional Court firmly detailed the competency of the National Anti-corruption Directorate, in two of these [conflicts - ed.n.] sanctioning the disloyal behaviour, the unconstitutional behaviour of the Chief Prosecutor of the National Anti-corruption Directorate," Toader told a press conference.



The Justice minister further said that in less than a year, the DNA was summoned by the Constitutional Court for two more conflicts of a constitutional nature.



"I have showed through the activity report of the DNA's Chief Prosecutor that, per se, the recording of a single legal conflict of a constitutional nature does not carry the ability to determine the removal from office of the head of the institution that triggered the conflict. I was saying this in March 2017. Conducts counter to the Constitution, isolated, can be corrected, this actually being the reason for constitutionally enshrining an adequate instrument and properly establishing the competency of the Constitutional court, of solving this conflict. The conclusions are obviously different, when the Constitution infringement exceeds the competency limits provided for by the Constitution and the law, when the breaches become systematic. In less than half a year from the publication of the decision no 68 from 2017, the National Anti-corruption Directorate, through its leadership, was again called in front of the Constitutional Court, for two more conflicts of a constitutional nature," Toader specified.

Romania’s General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar expressed his support for Kovesi, saying there were no legal grounds to dismiss her.

“The justice minister once again abandoned his responsibility as minister in order to serve political interests,” said Romania Platform 100, a non-governmental group headed by former Premier Dacian Ciolos.

The country’s ruling Social Democrats tried a year ago to decriminalize several corruption offences by emergency decree, leading to its largest street protests in decades.

A judicial overhaul approved by the ruling coalition late last year - which was criticized by the president, thousands of magistrates, the European Commission and the U.S. State Department - is back in parliament after the Constitutional Court ruled some of its provisions were unconstitutional.

DNA has investigated lawmakers, ministers, mayors, magistrates and businessmen in recent years, exposing conflicts of interest, abuse of power, fraud and the award of state contracts in exchange for bribes.

It has sent over 70 members of parliament to trial since 2006. The speakers of parliament’s lower house and senate are both currently on trial in separate cases.

In a news conference last week, Kovesi defended DNA against attacks by some of those currently on trial, saying she would have no reason to resign if she was asked to.

“This attack isn’t about Kovesi, it is about the prosecutors who have done their job. It aims to make the Romanian state kneel, humiliate society and the Romanian people,” she said.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside government headquarters following Toader’s news conference, chanting “You’re not getting away with it”.

More were joining them and demonstrations also broke out in at least three other cities, according to social media postings by participants.

“In case there were people doubting the justice minister was not a political actor, this evening has clarified that,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University. </s> Romania's Social Democrat-led government has survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence after the country witnessed its largest protests in decades over a corruption decree.

Ioana Bran, the parliamentary secretary, said on Wednesday that 161 MPs voted in support of the motion, short of the 232 votes needed for it to pass.

The Social Democrats and their allies control nearly two thirds of the seats in parliament after winning a December election.

They abstained from Wednesday's vote.

Romania president's hometown divided over crisis

"The necessary majority has not been met, according to the constitution, for the vote to pass," Bran said.

At least 5,000 protesters gathered outside government headquarters late on Wednesday to demand the cabinet's resignation, despite a snowstorm, subzero temperatures and power blackouts. "We exist, we resist," they chanted.

Catalin Predoiu, an opposition deputy, said of the motion: "This is a warning signal that we managed to gather the votes of the whole opposition and it also shows that whenever the new government derails we will gather and sanction it."

For over a week, hundreds of thousands of people have protested against the government after it passed a decree to decriminalise some official corruption.

Critics decried the move as a major setback to the country's anti-corruption drive.

Bowing to pressure, the government scrapped the ordinance on Sunday as some 500,000 people protested across the country.

The rallies were the largest protests in Romania since the fall of communist rule in 1989.

'Ugly face of politics'

The motion will now be debated by the parliament.

Klaus Iohannis, Romania's president, said the fight to contain corruption shows the "ugly face of politics".

He told the Associated Press news agency that the massive street protests were successful in stopping the decree that would have eased up on public officials who abuse their power while in office.

He said he was pleased that protesters cared about the future of Romania and made their feelings known.

READ MORE: Romanian government under pressure as 500,000 protest

"I was surprised by the size of the crowd," he said.

"Having over 200,000 people in Piata Victoriei [Victory Square] is something extraordinary."

The Constitutional Court rejected challenges on procedural grounds brought against the rescinded decree by Iohannis and by the top magistrates' council.

The court said it would reconvene on Thursday to consider a separate challenge brought by Romania's ombudsman against the content of the decree. </s> Romanian Justice Minister Florin Iordache resigned on Thursday after a decree on corruption that he had drafted triggered a week of mass street protests, international criticism and finally an embarrassing climbdown by the month-old government.

The decree would have effectively shielded dozens of public officials from prosecution for graft and was widely viewed as reversing Romania’s drive to tackle endemic graft. The government rescinded the decree on Sunday after the biggest protests seen in the country since the 1989 fall of communism.

“I’ve submitted my resignation. I say that all that I’ve done was legal,” Iordache told reporters.

The ruling Social Democrats will now propose a replacement and submit the name to President Klaus Iohannis, who has the right to reject it.

Iohannis, a former leader of the centre-right opposition, has strongly criticised the government over the decree. He has also launched a process to hold a national referendum on continuing the fight against corruption.

The government easily survived a vote of no-confidence on Wednesday as it has a large parliamentary majority following an election in December. Parliament must still endorse the government’s decision to rescind the decree.

Earlier on Thursday Romania’s constitutional court said it would not rule on the decree as it had now been ditched. The country’s ombudsman had earlier asked the court to intervene.

The number of anti-government protesters on the streets of Bucharest and other cities has fallen sharply since Sunday, when a quarter of a million people took part.

On Wednesday evening a hardcore group of about 5,000 braved snow and subzero temperatures to demand the resignation of the entire cabinet, chanting “We exist, we resist!” </s> Florin Iordache, co-architect of controversial corruption measure that set off rallies, resigns citing 'public opinion'.

Romania's justice minister has resigned after huge nationwide protests over government efforts to weaken anti-corruption laws through a decree.

Florin Iordache's resignation on Thursday came as rallies calling for the government to resign continued despite the Social Democratic-led leadership's pledge to scrap the decree, which would have decriminalised some corruption offences.

"I have decided to offer my resignation," said Iordache, 56, a co-architect of the January emergency rule which critics say would have protected corrupt politicians from prosecution.

He defended his record at the justice ministry saying he carried out "all necessary actions to remedy a series of sensitive problems".

"But despite that, public opinion did not consider it sufficient, and that's why I have decided to submit my resignation."

Iordache said all of his "initiatives were legal and constitutional".

Against this turbulent backdrop, Sorin Grindeanu, Romania's prime minister, survived a no-confidence vote on Wednesday despite the ongoing protests.

Bowing to pressure, the government scrapped the ordinance on Sunday as up to 500,000 people protested across the country.

The rallies were the largest protests since the fall of communist rule in 1989.

In a related development on Thursday, Romania's constitutional court said it would not rule on the decree.

The decree was referred to the court by Victor Ciorbea, the national ombudsman, on February 3, two days before the Social Democrats withdrew it.

"This decree does not exist anymore. It was scrapped [by the government]," said Valer Dorneanu, the court president.

"We start from the truth that the emergency decree no longer exists."

The withdrawal must still be approved by parliament.

Asked what would happen if parliament does not do so, Dorneanu said: "We don't judge based on suppositions." </s> Tens of thousands of Romanians protested in Bucharest and other main cities on Sunday against government’s plans to decriminalise certain offences and pardon convicts through emergency decrees that could hurt an anti-graft drive.

The plans unveiled earlier this month by the social democrat government have been criticised by President Klaus Iohannis, by the prosecutor general, the Supreme Court, the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, civil rights groups and diplomats.

The police said about 50,000 people took part in the rally in Bucharest, making it the biggest demonstration in a recent wave of protests.

Shouting “Thieves, thieves”, protesters gathered in freezing weather in the capital’s main square Piata Universitatii and then rallied outside the justice ministry, the ombudsman’s office and the government’s headquarters.

According to the drafts, the government intends to decriminalise abuse of power actions causing financial damage of less than 200,000 lei ($47,500).

Abuse of power accounts for a third of anti-corruption investigations. The ruling leftist Social Democrats’ leader Liviu Dragnea is at present on trial in an abuse of power case. Dragnea, who received a two-year suspended jail sentence for a 2012 referendum-rigging conviction, has branded the recent street protests an attempted coup.

“I am here because I can’t believe that 27 years have passed and I find myself in the same place in the same square,” said actress Adriana Moca, recalling the eruption of the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Bucharest.

Thousands of people also protested in main cities in the country and in several European Union capitals.

On Monday, justice minister Florin Iordache will hold a round of public consultations over the plan - on which the country’s top panel of magistrates has already issued a non-binding, negative opinion.

Protesters shouted anti-government slogans and asked for the resignation of the justice minister, chanting: “Stop corruption,”, “No pardons, yes schools and hospitals,” and backed President Iohannis’s calls for a nationwide referendum to step up the anti-corruption fight.

The government is also seeking to pardon convicts sentenced to less than five years for committing certain crimes, and cut sentences by half for all prisoners aged over 60, and those having a terminal illness, regardless of their crime.

President Iohannis on his Facebook page on Friday said German chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he had a telephone discussion at her initiative said: “The chancellor expressed full support for efforts to maintain progress made by our country, but she expressed concern that certain steps initiated during this period do not affect the fight against corruption in Romania.”

The European commission keeps Romania’s legal system under special monitoring. It has praised magistrates’ efforts to fight widespread graft, but noted Romanian politicians have a history of trying to pass legislation which could weaken investigative powers. </s> Romania’s justice minister Tudorel Toader announced he started the procedure to revoke the chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi.

He presented a 36-page report on the DNA chief’s activity during an 80-minute press briefing. The report included 20 “acts and facts” related to the DNA chief prosecutor’s activity, all of them negative. Some of them were based on the Constitutional Court’s decisions on the conflicts between the DNA and the Parliament and Government. Others were based on media reports and interviews that Kovesi gave to the local and international media. Tudorel Toader said that Kovesi’s statements in these interviews damaged Romania’s image abroad.

The justice minister criticised the DNA chief prosecutor for her authoritarian management style and her involvement in investigations, for trying to get convictions at any price, for the higher number of defendants acquitted following DNA investigations and the higher costs of DNA investigations, and for delaying the investigations in some cases. However, he didn’t answer the journalists’ request for examples based on which he formulated these critics.

At the end of his presentations, Tudorel Toader acknowledged DNA’s results in fighting corruption and said the fight against corruption should continue in Romania. However, he added that the DNA must continue to function legally and that the institution does not identify with its chief prosecutor, whose actions “have demonstrated that they can endanger the very institution that she has been managing”.

In the end, he summed his critics on Kovesi’s activity in several words: “excess of authority, discretionary behaviour, defying the Parliament, challenging the Constitutional Court’s decisions and authority”.

“For these acts and facts that are intolerable in a rule of law, I start the procedure to revoke the DNA chief prosecutor,” Toader concluded.

The report will be sent to the Superior Magistracy Council (CSM) and to President Klaus Iohannis, the only one who has the authority to revoke the DNA chief. President Iohannis said last week that he was satisfied with DNA’s activity and that he saw no reasons to revoke the DNA chief.

The justice minister started presenting his report on the management of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) at 18:00. He said the report was not an evaluation of DNA’s activity, which would be presented to the Parliament together with the reports on the activity of the Public Ministry and the Anti-Organized Crime Directorate – DIICOT.

He added that the report he would present was strictly on the activity of DNA’s management. The report has 36 pages and the minister warned the journalists it would take a while for him to present it.

He said the conclusions of the report were based on 20 acts and facts related to the DNA chief’s activity between February 2017 and February 2018.

The justice minister’s report will also be published on the Justice Ministry’s website after his presentation.
Also that day, the Constitutional Court rejected two pleas made by President Iohannis and the Supreme Council of the Magistracy (CSM) that claimed an institutional conflict between the Parliament, respectively the CSM on one hand, and the Government on the other, in a move that surprised the critics of the PSD-led cabinet and the protesters. The next day it rejected the final plea made by the Ombudsman on reasons of inadmissibility.