USR asks for extraordinary session of Parliament to repeal compensatory appeal

USR chairman Dan Barna has asked for the summoning of the parliament extraordinary session to repeal the compensatory appeal law (that released thousands of offenders from prison in Romania in the last two years) and to disband the Special Section for Investigating Magistrates. According to Barna, the campaign to raise signatures has started and the other opposition parties agree to an extraordinary session.

“We don’t need any referendum. The prime minister’s proposal (for a new referendum to tighten the sentences in the case rape and child molestation cases) is offending. The criminal legislation has been weakened in the Romanian Parliament for three years. Beyond sanctions and responsibilities of those who must pay (in the Caracal case) we need actions,” Barna pointed out.

Among the USR’s proposal to improve the criminal laws and to increase the efficiency of the authorities to prevent such cases as the Caracal tragedy, there are the immediate repeal of the compensatory appeal law, the full compliance of the justice laws with the GRECO, Venice Commission and European Commission’s recommendations on judiciary matters.

USR head has also lobbied for the improvement of the tracking system of 112 calls by amending the Law 160/2008 on the emergency call national system, as well as for the operationalisation of the Alert System of Kidnapping Children.

Barna also considers that a performing technique should be ensured for the Special Operations Department of the Romanian Police to monitor, tap and track the calls when they are investigating serious crimes. He also suggested that the criminal prosecution bodies should be granted more financial aids to conduct investigations, proposing the money for that to come from re-allotting the 235% additional budget granted to the Romanian Gendarmerie for weapons and ammunition.

USR chairman considers that any appointment for the management positions should be done based on meritocracy, based on tests, while asking the immediate termination of the interim terms of the police heads, who “are thus being henpecked”.

Barna also thinks that the Police Academy must be reformed by improving the education system of training policemen.

In the wake of the Caracal horrible crime, when a teen girl, Alexandra, was hitchhiking from the town to her village because there was no public transportation, the USR chairman said the county road transportation, abolished through the GEO 51/2019, must be resumed and paid for the pupils even during school vacations.

Barna is also calling for the register on sexual criminals to become operational, arguing the other special registers must be also created for violence of any kind, including domestic violence offenses.

USR  has also slammed the proposals made by the Chamber Speaker Marcel Ciolacu that an inquiry committee should be set up in Parliament to investigate the Caracal case.

“We have standing committees to hear anyone. We don’t need investigation committees”, USR deputy Raluca Pruna added.

A former technocrat Justice minister, Raluca Pruna has also pointed out that the Romanian state is unable to protect its citizens, that it is sexist, chauvinist and has a medieval attitude. She accused that the moral author of the Caracal tragedy is PSD-ALDE coalition, and particularly deputy Florin Iordache, former Justice minister, who initiated the justice laws amendments.

“This story with PM Dancila proposing the chemical castration is another nonsense made out of populism, and I hope she will not come up tomorrow with the proposal to reintroduce the death penalty. Things are not solved this way, we must prevent things. Before proposing chemical castration, the state authorities must take seriously the statements of the parents whose children are gone missing and not mock them, to stop being sexist and tell the parents, when a girl is missing, that it’s OK, she will be back, maybe she ran away with a guy, these things are Middle Age,” Pruna argued.