The Constitutional Court of Romania Tuesday ruled that a citizens’
\ninitiative entitled No criminals in public office launched by Save Romania
\nUnion in opposition, is constitutional and can follow the parliamentary
\nprocedure for endorsement. The initiators want Art. 37 in the Constitution,
\nwhich regulates the right to be elected to office, to include a new paragraph,
\nstipulating: Citizens subject to final custodial sentences for offences committed
\nwith criminal intent, shall not be elected into local public administration,
\nthe Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and President of Romania, until the
\nconsequences of their conviction have been removed.<\/p>\n
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On February 12, the Save Romania Union announced that the signatures
\nfor this initiative had reached the Constitutional Court, after an almost
\n100-day delay, and under the law the Constitutional Court had 60 days to rule
\non the constitutionality of the suggested text. More than one million
\nsignatures were raised, over 930,000 of them were submitted to Parliament and
\naround 825,000 were validated. <\/p>\n
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The Save Romania Union and the National Liberal Party welcomed the
\nConstitutional Court’s decision and say they will insist that the law be
\nendorsed in the current parliamentary session. The president of the Save
\nRomania Union, Dan Barna, hopes the bill will be supported by all political
\nparties:<\/p>\n
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My colleagues and I will resort to all the resources the
\nlegislation allows us to use in order to oblige this Standing Bureau to include
\nthe citizens’ initiative on the parliamentary agenda, so as to organise a
\nreferendum in which Romanian citizens will vote on a very simple thing: people
\nunder criminal sentences must no longer hold public posts.<\/p>\n
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On the other hand, the Social Democratic Party in power says the
\ntext is unclear on whether all public offices are concerned, or just those
\nposts for which elections are held. The Chamber of Deputies vice-president
\nEugen Nicolicea pointed out that the signatures have been raised to ban
\nconvicted offenders from all public posts, whereas the text of the document
\napproved by the Constitutional Court only mentions elected positions, namely MP,
\nlocal and county councillor and president of the country:<\/p>\n
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Maybe those who signed truly wanted no people with criminal
\nsentences in any public office, and I don’t understand why the Save Romania
\nUnion made this distinction and only mentioned elected offices.<\/p>\n
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Once validated by the Constitutional Court, the proposal must be
\ndiscussed in Parliament and adopted by the two chambers with a two-third
\nmajority. A referendum would next be held, whose validation depends on a
\ncertain minimum turnout and a majority of the votes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A citizens initiative to ban people convicted in court from holding public office meets the provisions of the fundamental law, the Constitutional Court rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":81399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[35650,19347],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-81398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-citizens-initiative","tag-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n