Romania’s new Liberal government
\nled by Ludovic Orban, which came to power in November upon the sacking of
\nViorica Dancila’s PSD cabinet through a no-confidence vote, has proved its
\nvulnerability. The Liberals, who have only 20% MPs, have soon realized that
\neven the backing they can get from their USR and PMP partners may not allow
\nthem to promote their projects. <\/p>\n
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Depending on the punctual and
\nselective support of a conjectural majority, the Executive in Bucharest
\npreferred to repeatedly assume responsibility for a series of legislative
\namendments. The latest, on returning to the two-round voting system for mayors,
\nhas sparked off debates once again. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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As other voices in Romania’s
\npolitical life and civil society, Prime Minister Orban argues that the latest
\namendments to voting legislation has been imposed by the necessity to increase
\nthe mayors’ legitimacy. The present system, under which the candidate who
\nmusters the largest number of votes in the first round wins the election, led
\nto strange situations as it happened in Galati, south-eastern Romania, where
\nthe present mayor was voted by only 9% of the voters. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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The Social-Democrats (PSD) have
\nblocked the draft in the special Parliament committee and have made public
\ntheir intention to table a censure motion, a move also backed by the Democratic
\nUnion of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which wants to preserve its political
\nmonopoly in numerous cities and towns in Transylvania. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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The PSD interim leader Marcel
\nCiolacu says the Prime Minister shouldn’t have come before Parliament to assume
\nresponsibility, after the Constitutional Court had already ruled the procedure
\nas unconstitutional when referring to documents under debates by the
\nLegislature. Ciolacu has added that if the censure motion fails to get the
\nright endorsement, the PSD will notify the Court. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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The Social Democrats have also
\nreported the issue to the Venice Commission but the European Parliament has
\nturned down their request that the issue be discussed in plenary session in Strasbourg.
\n<\/p>\n
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\n
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Another hot issue these days proves
\nto be the abrogation of the so-called special pensions, which is currently
\nopposing politicians to magistrates. On Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies passed
\nwith a land-sliding majority of 247 yes-votes and none against, the elimination
\nof special pensions for MPs, judges, prosecutors and the auxiliary specialized
\npersonnel of courts and prosecutor offices. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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The move also affects the civil
\nservants with special statutes, members of the diplomatic and consular corps,
\nof the Constitutional Court as well as aviation personnel. All these categories
\nhave benefited from pensions exceeding their work contributions, which were 15
\ntimes bigger than average pensions in Romania. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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Judges with the High Court of
\nCassation and Justice as well as the Higher Council of Magistracy decided to
\nnotify the Constitutional Court. According to the magistrates the law on
\nscrapping special pensions would be entirely unconstitutional, brutally
\ninfringing on the principles of democracy and inamovility of judges. <\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
(translated by bill)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bucharests public life has recently been dominated by disputes between the ruling parties and opposition as well as by the strife lately opposing politicians to magistrates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":84477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[35351,39705,31530,31525],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-ciolacu","tag-galati","tag-mps","tag-orban"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n