Criminal codes, postponed following CCR ruling on the abuse of office

The Government delayed debates on the criminal codes’ amendment. The proposals submitted by the Justice Ministry should have been discussed at the government sitting on Friday. The Executive argued that discussions are temporarily adjourned until the Constitutional Court releases the motivation of the decision on the abuse of office.

“We have decided to withdraw the initial draft from the agenda, as it discounted the CCR decision, we’ll wait for the motivation and after that we’ll come up with the next draft, through a transparent as wide as possible process. The CCR ruling is mandatory and must be tuned with the Criminal Procedure Code and with the Criminal Code,” said PM Grindeanu said before the sitting started.

In his turn, Justice minister Tudorel Toader said that it’s natural to promote a unitary draft law. “We are waiting for the motivation and its release in the Official Gazette (…) and dependent on that we’ll proceed with the public debate,” Toader said.

On the other hand, ruling Social Democrat Party’s chairman Liviu Dragnea stated on Friday that the threshold for the damages caused by the abuse of office should be settled through a law and not through an emergency ordinance.

“The ordinance is not such a good idea for a more serious debate should take place on how high should this threshold be. An analysis for this threshold must be done,” Dragnea said when asked if RON 400,000, the sum rumored in the past days for the abuse of office threshold, is reasonable.