Constitutional Court Deems New Administration Code Unconstitutional

Iohannis challenged the bill on July 31, stating that it contains unclear and uncorrelated dispositions, which contradict both the Romanian Constitution and existing legal provisions.

“A modern public administration, in a state which is governed by the rule of law, democratic and social, before everything else must be a transparent public administration, transparency which is unconceivable in the absence of clear, unitary and accessible regulations. From analyzing the law we see that it has unclear regulations, legal parallelisms and dispositions both uncorrelated between them, and with other legal dispositions,” the Romanian chief of state claims in his challenge.

The head of state added that the bill would restrict liability for a member of the Government who finds himself in a situation of conflict of interest, and would allow said members to take certain actions benefiting relatives, friends or business partners, and also excludes personal non-material benefits from his liability.

The president also criticized a provision which allows local authorities and public institutions to decide whether they will use the language of national minorities in administration in areas where minority groups do not meet requirements for doing so. Iohannis said that this directly contradicted the Romanian Constitution, which states that minority languages in administration can be used in areas with significant minority populations.

Elsewhere in the challenge, Iohannis targeted a controversial provision regarding special pensions for some local elected officials, which would now be granted from the state budget.

Romania’s Lower Chamber passed the bill on July 10, as a deciding body

It would have allowed local elected officials to be self-employed or “individuals who exploit a personal or family enterprise”.

It also added a new provision which states that special pensions received by local officials elected starting with 1992 after the end of their terms will be paid from the national budget.

The bill eliminated a previous 20% local population threshold for the use of minority languages in prefectures, town halls and county and local councils. This mean local and general authorities can now decide to use the languages of local minorities in administration if they deem it applicable, regardless of their share in the population of a certain area, and also to install bilingual plates in public buildings.

The bill will be returned to the Parliament to correct unconstitutional provisions.

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