“No criminals in public office” Initiative

A citizens initiative to ban people convicted in court from holding public office meets the provisions of the fundamental law, the Constitutional Court rules.

Leyla Cheamil, 10.04.2019, 13:43

The Constitutional Court of Romania Tuesday ruled that a citizens’
initiative entitled No criminals in public office launched by Save Romania
Union in opposition, is constitutional and can follow the parliamentary
procedure for endorsement. The initiators want Art. 37 in the Constitution,
which regulates the right to be elected to office, to include a new paragraph,
stipulating: Citizens subject to final custodial sentences for offences committed
with criminal intent, shall not be elected into local public administration,
the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and President of Romania, until the
consequences of their conviction have been removed.

On February 12, the Save Romania Union announced that the signatures
for this initiative had reached the Constitutional Court, after an almost
100-day delay, and under the law the Constitutional Court had 60 days to rule
on the constitutionality of the suggested text. More than one million
signatures were raised, over 930,000 of them were submitted to Parliament and
around 825,000 were validated.

The Save Romania Union and the National Liberal Party welcomed the
Constitutional Court’s decision and say they will insist that the law be
endorsed in the current parliamentary session. The president of the Save
Romania Union, Dan Barna, hopes the bill will be supported by all political
parties:

My colleagues and I will resort to all the resources the
legislation allows us to use in order to oblige this Standing Bureau to include
the citizens’ initiative on the parliamentary agenda, so as to organise a
referendum in which Romanian citizens will vote on a very simple thing: people
under criminal sentences must no longer hold public posts.

On the other hand, the Social Democratic Party in power says the
text is unclear on whether all public offices are concerned, or just those
posts for which elections are held. The Chamber of Deputies vice-president
Eugen Nicolicea pointed out that the signatures have been raised to ban
convicted offenders from all public posts, whereas the text of the document
approved by the Constitutional Court only mentions elected positions, namely MP,
local and county councillor and president of the country:

Maybe those who signed truly wanted no people with criminal
sentences in any public office, and I don’t understand why the Save Romania
Union made this distinction and only mentioned elected offices.

Once validated by the Constitutional Court, the proposal must be
discussed in Parliament and adopted by the two chambers with a two-third
majority. A referendum would next be held, whose validation depends on a
certain minimum turnout and a majority of the votes.