European Commission Threatens Romania with Harsher Mechanism if it Enacts Criminal Code Amendments

In the letter, sent to President Klaus Iohannis, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and the chairmen of the two Romanian Parliament chambers, Timmermans says that the Commission will enact its “Rule of law Framework” to temporarily replace the current Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). According to the EU official, the framework will be triggered if Romanian authorities do not respect CVM recommendations or take other “steps backwards” on the matter, such as enacting the recent criminal code amendments.

“This process – which contains a dialogue to correct concerns and avoid triggering the EU Treaty’s Article 7 – will replace the CVM process for a short while. The criteria and relevant recommendations from the CVM will be analyzed within the Rule of law Framework. Of course, Romania will remain obliged to respect the commitments it took when it acceded (to the EU, ed.), and CVM criteria will remain open until they are fully and satisfyingly fulfilled,” Timmermans wrote in the letter.

The EU official added that the European Commission was forced address issues with the rule of law in Romania frequently in the past months, stating that the criminal code amendments risk to “create a de facto situation of impunity for criminal offences, including corruption”.

President Klaus Iohannis challenged the criminal code amendments at the Constitutional Court last week, following similar challenges from opposition parties.

Romania’s Lower Chamber voted on April 24, as a deciding body, to adopt a bill amending the country’s criminal code, redrafted after it was deemed unconstitutional in late 2018.

All provisions previously declared unconstitutional were removed from the bill; instead, those that passed the constitutionality check or were not challenged were kept unmodified.

Among the stipulations kept in the bill was one which reduces the statute of limitations as follows: eight years for offences punishable with between 10-20 years of prison time (from the current 10 years) and six years for offences punishable with between five and ten years in prison (down from eight).

In addition, the bill abolishes the offence of negligence in office and sets a one-year limit since an offence was committed for possible denunciators to inform authorities and evade any liability.

On the same day, the chamber also passed a bill amending the country’s Criminal Procedure Code, which also eliminated provisions that were previously declared unconstitutional.

Among the amendments maintained in the bill are an interdiction for public communications and information about individuals who are under prosecution or arraignment, a new right for witnesses to interrupt hearings in order to consult with lawyers, as well as an interdiction for prosecutors to confiscate evidence during searches pertaining to other offences than those they have warrants issued for.

Furthermore, the act also limits the period in which a person can benefit from reduced sentences if it denounces an offence to one year since the act in cause happened. Witnesses will also be unable to submit recordings of conversations with culprits in private spaces as evidence, while intelligence agencies will not be able to inform authorities of evidence related to other offences while it is monitoring individuals for national security concerns, under provisions of the bill.

If you liked this story, please follow MEDIAFAX.RO on FACEBOOK »

The content of mediafax.ro is for your information only. Republishing or using this content is forbidden without express consent of MEDIAFAX. For this consent, please ask for it by mail at vanzari@mediafax.ro.