Amended law for the National Integrity Agency
The Romanian Senate, as decision-making body, has adopted the legislative proposal to amend the law regulating the activity of the National Integrity Agency
Florentin Căpitănescu, 19.12.2017, 13:50
The Romanian Senate, as decision-making body, has adopted the legislative proposal to amend the law regulating the activity of the National Integrity Agency. Thus, the bans imposed on MPs for having violated legal provisions on the conflict of interest between 2007 and 2013 have been eliminated. According to an earlier ruling issued by the Constitutional Court back then, before the Law on the Statute of Senators and Deputies came into force, “a conflict of interest” in the case of MPs was not regulated in terms of civil law. The opposition has vehemently criticised the draft law, saying a unitary approach is needed as regards conflicts and MPs integrity. Liberal senator Alina Gorghiu (in the opposition) has drawn attention to the fact that this law is actually clearing the past of some MPs, but it does not solve the future.
Alina Gorghiu: “The future could be solved by means of a Code which should bring together the over 270 laws which include provisions related to incompatibility and conflict of interest. There is no prospect of a unitary regulation. We will further have problems with such cases of integrity. It is a legislative anomaly as no other before”.
In turn, senator Vlad Alexandrescu of the opposition Save Romania Union has stated that “the MPs of the ruling power hurry to erase, out of a criminal reflex, any trace left at the crime scene”. “You hurry to erase the effects of incompatibility and conflict of interest in the case of hundreds of MPs, mayors, county council presidents and local counsellors”, Alexandrescu has also said. The response of the parliamentary majority came from Social-Democrat senator Claudiu Manda:
“I agree with you that this is a legislative anomaly, especially since we know of situations when, in the 2007-2013 time-span, senators broke a law which took effect in 2013. This is what we are talking about. We are also talking about National Integrity Agency reports.”
To pundits, the Senates decision is an important victory scored by the majority made up of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, in its assault on Justice, an unprecedented move in the last decade since Romania joined the EU. Also, according some observers, the adoption of this law can lead a massive “amputation” of the prerogatives of the National Integrity Agency, an institution which, alongside the National Anti-corruption Directorate, has constantly been praised in the CVM reports, an instrument by which the European Commission has been monitoring Romanias justice system since its EU accession.
(translated by Diana Vijeu)
