The themes of the referendum on justice
The Romanian President announced on Thursday the themes of the referendum on justice.
Ştefan Stoica, 05.04.2019, 13:53
In a week when the European Commission, the European Parliament, partner and allied states, including the US, have called on the leftist power in Bucharest to put the reform of the judiciary back on the right track in order to avoid breaking with the rule of law, President Iohannis announced the themes of the referendum on justice to be held on May 26: forbidding amnesty and pardon of corruption offences and forbidding the government to pass emergency decrees in the area of criminal offences, punishments and judicial organization, correlated with the right of other authorities to directly notify the Constitutional Court over such decrees.
President Iohannis warned the governing coalition to no longer pass any emergency decree targeting justice and criminal legislation before the citizens can have their say in the referendum. In his opinion, any decree issued by the executive would be illegitimate and would go against the spirit of the Constitution. The president went on to say that the Romanian citizens have to decide whether they agree to the effects of the sentences received by people convicted for corruption being erased, and whether they agree to the government continuing to pass emergency decrees on sensitive issues related to the criminal legislation and the organization of the judiciary.
Klaus Iohannis: “Zero tolerance to corruption, by forbidding amnesty and pardon of criminal offences, is the right path for continuing the fight against corruption, because emergency decrees produce immediate effects, and in the criminal offence area, these effects can affect past convictions, and they can only be challenged directly at the Constitutional Court by the Ombudsman. It’s high time the citizens decided whether other constitutional authorities should also have the right to notify the Constitutional Court so as to stop the effect of unconstitutional decrees.”
The main opposition party, the National Liberal Party, which supports President Klaus Iohannis’ candidacy for a second term in office, considers the referendum on justice a good move. The Liberal leader Ludovic Orban expressed his conviction that most citizens will back president Iohannis and the Liberal Party. A constant target of the president’s criticism, the Social Democratic Party officials announced that they were not opposed to the referendum and were waiting to see how the questions to be asked at the referendum will be formulated. They added that they would not accept that Romania be attacked on false issues in the judicial area.
A junior partner in the governing coalition, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, through the voice of its leader Calin Popescu Tariceanu, sees the referendum in an electoral key. He claims the president is more concerned with getting another term in office, using the referendum on justice, called on the same day with the EP elections, as a springboard to make his way into the political game. The president of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Kelemen Hunor, says the themes of the referendum were no surprise to him, and goes even further than president Iohannis in relation to emergency degrees, claiming that they should be eliminated altogether.
