Romanian Lower Chamber To Convene In Special Session On Aug 16

Chamber Speaker Roberta Anastase said the Committee for legal matters would be notified about the Constitutional Court’s ruling concerning the unconstitutionality of the law on public office. She added that the Chamber plenum’s agenda will also include the law on the National Integrity Agency (ANI).

Anastase also said the Liberal Party’s group requested that two extra bills be put on the agenda – one aiming to prevent delayed payments, the other approving certain tax reduction measures. The two bills proposed by the liberals are currently being drawn up by the Chamber committee for budget and finance.

The speaker added there was no opposition from the deputies to convening in a special session during the summer recess. „I expect we will have a quorum and the ANI bill will pass the Chamber,” she said.

On July 19, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the revised version of the law regulating the activity of the ANI law, after President Traian Basescu challenged the revised normative act’s constitutionality. In his contestation, Basescu cited breaches of certain constitutional provisions regarding law adoption procedures and the powers of the two chambers of the Parliament.

Romania’s Parliament had amended the law regulating the country’s integrity agency, a EU-required anticorruption body that screened public officials’ wealth and recommended prosecution for alleged illicit gains in a move to tackle endemic corruption, after the country’s Constitution Court found the initial law unconstitutional. The new law, however, considerably weakened the agency’s powers and the European Commission said in its monitoring report the revised law was a significant step back in the country’s fight against corruption.