Romanian President Challenges Criminal Code Amendments at the Constitutional Court

The Romanian head of state based his challenge on both procedural issues in adopting the bills, stating that the Parliament infringed the principle of bicameralism in the process, and on specific provisions.

Klaus Iohannis argues that the Parliament, which intended to pass the bills without provisions that were previously declared unconstitutional, failed to introduce norms mentioned by the Court in its unconstitutionality decision for the previous bills, in late 2018.

According to the president, the Parliament could perform a re-examination of the two bills only if it also added said norms, which cover situations considered unregulated and necessary by the Constitutional Court.

Iohannis added in the challenge that the Parliament made certain amendments to the codes not subject to previous constitutional checks, but which were used to accord the codes with prior constitutional court decisions.

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 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.

Romanian opposition parties PNL and USR challenged the bills at the Constitutional Court on April 25.

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