Heated debates in the Legal Committee on criminal code amendments. Coalition drops threshold for abuse of office

The Legal Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, at the proposal of PSD, PNL and UDMR, adopted the version of the Criminal Codes proposed by the Ministry of Justice and renounced all the amendments adopted by the Senate.

In a trouble sitting, PSD, PNL and UDMR deputies proposed changes by which they eliminated the evidence obtained from the interceptions carried out by the intelligence services on the basis of national security warrants, in the case of corruption crimes.

Shortly after the adoption of the amendment, the leaders of the Legal Committee were summoned to Marcel Ciolacu’s office and were told that they had to abandon all the changes. In the end, the threshold for abuse of office was also amended, starting at 250,000 lei, the version proposed by the Senate.

“It was considered that the form coming from the Government is the best. I was called by absolutely all the representatives of the Government who requested that the form from the Government remain in force”, explained Laura Vicol, after the meeting of the Legal Committee of the Chamber.

The Legal Committee of the Chamber of Deputies abandoned all the changes and voted for the version of the Codes proposed by Predoiu. PSD, PNL and UDMR deputies voted collectively to reject the changes they had made a few tens of minutes ago.

“All amendments adopted today are withdrawn to the coalition. The governing coalition withdraws all the submitted amendments and we will vote to eliminate all the amendments in the Senate, including that established threshold. Adopted with two abstentions and I propose an adoption report for the form from the Government, with the rejected or eliminated amendments voted today. Adopted with four abstentions. There is no longer a threshold for the crime of abuse of office. The amendment voted in the Senate was eliminated, because this was the problem of civil society. So we complied with the request“, declared Laura Vicol, in the meeting of the Legal Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.

Thus, the amendment was eliminated by which evidence based on SRI interceptions in corruption cases was eliminated. The legal deputies also removed all the amendments made by the fellow senators, including the threshold of 250,000 lei set for the crime of abuse of office.

The legal commission adopted a report by which it recommends that the Chamber of Deputies plenary vote the version of the Criminal Codes proposed by the Ministry of Justice, without any changes.