The Lower Chamber’s plenary sitting on Tuesday voted the law vetoing the controversial emergency ordinance no 13 and the law approving the EO 14 that was repealing the previous no 13. The laws were sent to President Iohannis for promulgation.
The deputies first voted for the law on EO 14 and then for the EO 13.
The deputies vetoed the EO 13 by 291 votes to three abstentions. A deputy didn cast the vote, with media saying it was former PM Victor Ponta, who had stated before the plenary sitting that he might not vote at all.
The EO 14 repealing the no 13 was passed by 292 votes to one abstention.
The plenary sitting was chaired by PSD deputy Gabriel Vlase and not by the chamber speaker Liviu Dragnea
After the vote, the interim chairman of the National Liberal Party Raluca Turcan has asked for the government’s resignation.
The legal committee of the Chamber of Deputies had previously passed the law vetoing the controversial emergency ordinance 13 intended to amend the Criminal Codes. The vote came after confusion over its fate on Tuesday morning, when, although it was known the ordinance would be debated and get the final vote today, there were some talks that it would be postponed. However, the draft law has been eventually put on the agenda and sent to the plenary sitting.
The vetoing report for the EO 13 was passed by 21 votes to three abstentions in the lower chamber’s legal committee.
It appears that the former minister of Justice Florin Iordache, the one who actually initiated and supported the controversial ordinance and even resigned over street protests, on Tuesday voted to veto the EO 13, along with the other Social Democrats.
Initially, the vetoing draft law of EO 13 had to be discussed in the legal committee in the morning, but the sitting was postponed for the Senate hadn’t sent the report in due time.
The Chamber of Deputies was the decision-making body for vetoing EO 13 and EO 14.
The vote in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday put an end to a highly controversial situation prompted by the Government’s intention to decriminalize certain graft offenses, with the most important of them being the abuse of office. The freshly installed Cabinet’s move was promptly sanctioned by the population which staged massive street protests through three weeks asking for the emergency decree’s repealing. Hundreds of thousands took to the street day by day in the largest anti-governmental protest in Romania in the past 25 years. Rallies defying snowfall, freezing cold or rain continued even after the rulers repealed the controversial decree, in protest for the Executive’s stance.
FM Melescanu heard at DNA
Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu was heard as a witness in the file of EO 13 at the National Anti-corruption Directorate. Melescanu is among the signatories of the controversial decree. He told journalists that he has given a positive note to the EO 13 as it stipulated the transposing of an European directive into the Romanian legislation.
“The minister of Justice didn’t explain the ordinance’s consequences to me, I explained them to myself at large for I know to read. I read the entire regulatory document, but only that provision was up to me. I signed it because provisions of a directive of the European Parliament had to be transposed in the Romanian legislation and I had to agree to this transposing,” Melescanu explained.