U.S. State Dept Human Rights Report On Romania Criticizes Uninominal Voting Sys

 

Referring to Romania’s uninominal voting system, the report notes criticism of the system by media and government officials, as the system assigns parliamentary seats to party members who finished second or third in their district.

 

"The law defines "national minorities" as only those ethnic groups represented in the Council of National Minorities. The law requires that the organizations that are not represented in the parliament meet requirements that are more stringent than those of minority groups already represented in parliament. Such organizations must provide the Central Electoral Bureau a list of members equal to at least 15 percent of the total number of persons belonging to that ethnic group according to the most recent census. If 15 percent represents more than 20,000 persons, then at least 20,000 names from at least 15 counties plus the city of Bucharest, with no fewer than 300 persons from each county, must be submitted. Human rights NGOs criticized these requirements as discriminatory and aimed at eliminating competition to the mainstream organizations representing Hungarians and Roma, namely the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and the Roma Party-Pro Europe," the report states.

 

“While the law does not restrict women's participation in government or politics, societal attitudes presented a significant barrier. There were 38 women in the 334-seat Chamber of Deputies and eight women in the 137-seat Senate. At year's end, only two prefects of the 42 counties were women,” the report also states.

 

Ethnic Hungarians, represented by the UDMR, were the only ethnic minority to gain parliamentary representation by passing the 5 percent threshold. Only one Romani organization, the Roma Party-Pro Europe, was represented in parliament. Low Romani voter turnout due to lack of awareness, means, or identity cards further exacerbated the situation, the report added. 

 

 

"The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption, but the government did not implement the law effectively," the report notes, stressing no major case of high-level corruption had yet resulted in judgments involving prison sentences. The U.S. Department of State adds that the European Commission also criticized court sentences as "lenient and inconsistent" and parliament for lacking an "unequivocal commitment to rooting out high level corruption".

 

"Moreover, there were efforts to weaken the criminal procedure code, such as through parliamentary provisions requiring authorities to notify suspects that they are being wiretapped," the report emphasizes, adding that, according to the EC, the system allowing citizens to report suspected cases of corruption was neither accessible nor comprehensive, and implementation of rules to protect the confidentiality of whistle blowers was deficient.

 

The U.S. Department of State report notes there was little progress made in ten cases involving former government ministers, due to the decision of the former parliament to block the investigation and to the dismissal of cases by the High Court of Justice. "By year's end, two of the 10 cases had been sent to court, three were with the DNA (Anticorruption Department), one had been rejected by parliament, and three were still pending in parliament," the report noted.

 

The law empowers the National Integrity Agency (ANI) to audit officials' declarations of assets, incompatibilities, and conflicts of interest. The law stipulates that the ANI can identify "unjustified" wealth, meaning that proof of illegal activity is required before an investigation may be initiated. The government amended the ANI law by emergency ordinance the same month it was created. The ANI is authorized to examine annual asset declarations, but not bank accounts or other assets of individuals without their permission. Anonymous tips of an official's unjustified accumulation of assets cannot be used as grounds to initiate investigations. Some critics have noted that this discretionary authority should be vested in more than a single individual.

 

The report also notes that following the elections, all but two government ministries were renamed, adding that “critics claimed that this measure was undertaken to erode the civil service protection of many mid-level positions within the renamed ministries, thus opening those offices to political influence”.

 

Although the law provides for public access to government information related to official decision making, human rights NGOs and the media reported that the law was poorly and unevenly applied, the report noted.

 

Although the government ordered the intelligence services to release the files of the communist-era Securitate intelligence service, the powers of the National College for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS) were curtailed following a January 31 Constitutional Court ruling that the CNSAS law was unconstitutional. A government ordinance and a later law allowed the CNSAS to continue operation, but it was no longer entitled to issue verdicts that identify individuals as Securitate collaborators. 

 

A number of domestic and international human rights groups generally operated without government restriction and government officials were generally cooperative and responsive to their views, the report states, adding that, however, there were some problems.

 

"After two NGOs, the Center for Legal Resources and Terra Millenium III Foundation, won a joint lawsuit against Bucharest City Hall over the legality of a city construction project, the city requested a court to dissolve the NGOs. A law adopted in December forbids NGOs to have names that could falsely associate them with authorities or public institutions of national or local interest. Some NGOs, such as the Romanian Academic Society (SAR), thought that the law was aimed at harassing NGOs unpopular with government officials,” the report stated. 

 

Regarding the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD), the report noted the council received 837 public complaints of discrimination in 2008, of which 462 were resolved. Of these cases, 116 involved alleged discrimination on the basis of nationality and ethnicity and 15 involved discrimination on religious grounds, the report noted, adding that although both chambers of parliament have a human rights committee, since these committees were comprised of political party representatives, their recommendations often reflected parties' views.