The joint plenum of the two chambers of parliament has adopted, by 203 votes ‘for’ and 94 ‘against’ a parliament statement, as filed by Senate Speaker Calin Popescu Tariceanu. Among the MPs criticizing the draft statement were Senator Traian Basescu and former health minister Vlad Alexandrescu.
President Klaus Iohannis is accused of ‘abuse of law’ and ‘usurpation’ of the right of Parliament to hold the Government accountable, following the complaint filed to the Constitutional Court (CCR) regarding emergency ordinance 13.
“The Romanian Parliament welcomes the clarifications brought by CCR in its decision of February 8, 2017 declaring as unfounded the complaints filed by the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) and by the Romanian President. The CCR decision was needed due to the absence of good faith in the interpretation of the fundamental law by the institutional representatives of the judiciary, as well as due to the legal abuse of the President of Romania, which come following the baseless notification of the CCR, aimed only to block a political democratic process,” the draft declaration reads.
The statement also reads that the President, the CSM and the Public Ministry representatives have conducted actions that have ‘usurped’ the exclusive right of parliament to hold the executive accountable.
“The parliament considers as unconstitutional and unacceptable the judgments made by the President of Romania, by CSM, or by the representatives of the Public Ministry against the Government decisions and activities. Such activities are illegally and improperly usurping the exclusive right of Parliament to hold the government accountable,” reads the text of the draft statement.
The statement quoted states that “the parliament believes that the recent CCR decision should put an end once and for all to the concerted action to undermine the role and prestige of the Parliament” and that, by this statement, “the parliament reaffirms its political supremacy over all other public institutions.”
The statement is an ‘exclusively political’ document of the parliament, without any legal consequences.
This draft statement, in a slightly altered form, was submitted a few weeks ago, upon the initiative of the Senate Speaker, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, for being included on the agenda of a joint plenum, but it was postponed at the time.
President Iohannis: Political declaration of Parliament – a disturbing signal
President Klaus Iohannis asserts that the political Declaration adopted on Wednesday by the Parliament is a disturbing signal regarding the the outlook the Legislative has got upon the way it relates to the state’s authorities and bodies, as well as to the civil society.
“The political declaration adopted by the Parliament of Romania — whose detailed analysis from the judicial point of view questions the rigor of the concepts and arguments—, although it claims the role of the Parliament in the institutional architecture of the Romanian state, in fact it is a worrisome signal on the outlook the Parliament has upon the way it relates to the other authorities and institutions of the state, as well as to the civil society,” says the president, according to a release by the Presidential Administration.
According to the source, the Parliament’s political Declaration is harming the loyal cooperation principle among the state’s institutions, grounded in the jurisprudence of the constitutional litigation court, considering that it has been used “as pretext a piece of legislation of the Government adopted in absentia of any legislative delegation from the Parliament and strongly contested by the civil society” and a decision of the Constitutional Court whose motivation is unknown yet, was invoked.
The Presidential Administration says that the standpoints voiced by Romania’s President are far from being “mere opinions” much less “private or partial”, but that they do materialise into actions and acts meant to realise the representative role of the president.