The USR has submitted to parliament a bill to amend the law on the Constitutional Court, USR MP Stelian Ion said on Monday, arguing that the CCR has “shown its limits” in recent years and the time has come to reform the institution.

“Such a law is absolutely necessary. No serious reform in Romania can take place without passing through the filter of the Constitutional Court. Conversely, any reform can hinder the Constitutional Court, as we have seen in recent years. Important laws such as those related to special pension laws, laws related to the regulation of justice, other laws in other areas have been blocked many times in the Constitutional Court. Therefore, we believe that the time has come to start this discussion on the reform of the Constitutional Court. In recent years, the Constitutional Court has shown its limitations, it has shown that it bases its decisions more on political arguments and less on legal ones, and we have seen how many reforms the Constitutional Court has hindered,” said Stelian Ion of Parliament, according to Agerpres.

Among the proposed amendments, he noted that in the future the KKR may sanction unconstitutional texts, but without the possibility to force the parliament to adopt any legislative decision.

“First of all, we believe that the role of the Constitutional Court is not that of a positive legislator. Unfortunately, in recent times the Constitutional Court has replaced the Parliament many times, giving instructions and setting very clear obligations for the Parliament, namely, what legislative decisions the Parliament has to make. For the Constitutional Court, this possibility means nothing more than a violation of the role of the parliament as a legislative power, as an expression of the people’s sovereignty. So that we establish with these proposals that in the future the Constitutional Court will not have a pencil with which to indirectly write laws, but will have an eraser with which to erase unconstitutional norms,” ​​explained the UDR deputy.

Stelian Ion also noted that regarding the powers of the head of the Constitutional Court, he should not be able to appoint judge-rapporteurs in the future, noting that in this sense the UDR proposes to appoint judge-rapporteurs by drawing lots.

According to Stelian Ion, the Constitutional Court should no longer keep in a box for months, sometimes years, some appeals formulated by some institutions and citizens, USR proposes to establish the duty of the Constitutional Court to make a decision within the maximum period. within 60 days of notification.

“We gave the opportunity to other institutions to apply to the Constitutional Court when the decision of the Court of the European Union or the ECtHR would require a return to the practice of the Constitutional Court, to give the opportunity to these subjects to apply to the Constitutional Court through a procedure clearly established by the return to their own judicial practice. I also assessed that it is very important in the future to properly regulate the issue of removing immunity from judges of the Court, noting that this issue should be the competence of those who appoint them, namely the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, respectively the President of Romania,” said the deputy UDR

The draft UDR also proposes changes in the case of exceptions of unconstitutionality so that they are decided in two stages, in the first stage by a three-judge panel of the Constitutional Court, and the decision of this panel can be appealed. those they have the opportunity to refer to the Constitutional Court, and another panel of five judges of the Constitutional Court will rule on the appeal, Stelian Ion explained.

Also, the project directly establishes the obligation for the judges of the Supreme Court not to obey political organizations or institutions that nominated them for the respective positions in any way. In addition, there is an obligation for judges to publicly disclose any interests that may influence their activities or decisions.

The UDR proposes to make it mandatory to broadcast the meetings online and make public the documents that are the basis of the decisions. Video recordings of the meetings will also be available on the institution’s website.

“This is the first step we are taking now. We believe that this discussion is necessary in our society and that it will continue at a certain point, when the parliamentary majority is solid enough and is set on, say, real reforms, it will continue with the revision of the Constitution. First, we have this particular bill to amend the Constitutional Law, a small reform of the Constitutional Court, because it refers to the law, not the Constitution, but a big reform, we say, because it concerns essential aspects of the functioning of this institution “, added the UDR deputy.

The project was initiated together with Stelian Ion and Deputy USR Silviu Dehelean.

“The Court’s activity in the recent period has been quite controversial, culminating in a decision that led to the closure of thousands of criminal cases with damages of more than a billion euros in the case of DNA and DIICOT alone. In 2017, we drew attention to the danger of politicization of the Court, but this issue can only be resolved by revising the Constitution. Until then, we propose to make changes to the law on the work of the Central Committee. (…) To have a healthy democracy, the Constitutional Court must be reformed,” said Silviu Dehelean, according to a USR press release.