Romanian Chamber Committee Votes To Endorse Integrity Agency Bill

Lawmakers of the Democratic Liberal Party, the Liberal Party, the Hungarian minority party, lawmakers representing national minorities, as well as independent lawmakers, all voted in favor of the report.

Deputies in the committee for legal matters adopted the report with a series of amendments regarding appointments in the integrity agency’s management structure, sanctions, as well as the application form for wealth statements- public and confidential.

The Chamber of Deputies set off debates Wednesday afternoon on the new draft law regulating the activity of the anticorruption body ANI.

The draft law was presented in the Chamber’s plenary meeting by Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu.

Romania’s integrity agency, a EU-backed public anticorruption body, has been stripped of its main attributions in screening public officials wealth and interest statements and recommending prosecution for wrongdoing, following a Constitutional Court ruling. The Court found the integrity agency’s law unconstitutional, as it breaches the right to privacy and does not apply the presumption of innocence to those investigated.