Romania: President Iohannis Refuses To Approve Justice Changes

By

By Ana Maria Luca

Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that he will not approve a set of justice bills passed by the Social Democrat-led parliament last week because they threaten the rule of law.

Iohannis said that he would send the bills to Romania’s Constitutional Court and will also notify the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.

“The bills … fail to meet European standards,” Iohannis said, adding that they threaten the judiciary’s independence by putting undue pressure on magistrates.

Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party has come under severe criticism from both Romanian civil society and European institutions since it won the December 2016 elections because of a push to adopt justice reforms that have been deemed damaging to the fight against corruption.

However, despite warnings from the European Commission and the Council of Europe, ruling party politicians have pushed ahead with the controversial bills, leading to the country’s largest protests since the fall of communism.

Activists have announced another large protest on May 12.

Romania’s centre-right President has been one of the harshest critics of the ruling party’s policies. He recently denied a government request to fire anti-graft chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi. On Friday, he described Social Democrat Prime Minister Viorica Dancila as unfit for her post and urged her to resign.

Iohannis’ rejection of the justice bills comes as the European Union on Wednesday announced that it will cut funds for member states that it considers are undermining the rule of law and are in danger of compromising the spending of EU taxpayers’ money.

The European Commission included the provision in its joint budget proposal for 2021-27.

The new EU measure has made waves in Romania, although the decision was taken as a warning mainly for Poland and Hungary, whose governments have put pressure on critical media and non-governmental groups and introduced changes to the judiciary that critics say go against the rule of law.

Balkan Insight

The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *