The Senate amended and approved the whistleblower bill on Thursday. In the Judiciary Committee’s report, senators drafted an amendment worthy of Caragiale’s time. Thus, appropriate amendment “an anonymous report must contain the contact details of the whistleblower in the public interest”.

The buclucaș amendment belongs to the PNL senators from the Judiciary Commission, Daniel Fenechiu, Cristian Šagarlash, Alina Gorgiu, Claudia Mihaela Banu, and was adopted by the majority of the members present.

Full correction

• “An anonymous report includes at least: contact details of the whistleblower, which is of public interest, the quality of the reporting person, in accordance with Art. 2, the professional context in which the information was received, the relevant person, if it is known, a description of the fact that may constitute a violation of the law in the authority, state institution, any other legal entity under public law or within the framework of a legal entity under private law, and also, if applicable, evidence to support the reporting and date.”

See here the report of the Legal Commission, paragraph 12.

Senators voted at the plenary session with 76 votes “for”, eight “against” and three abstentions, the draft law in the form edited by the Legal Commission.

In addition, the president of the legal commission of the Senate, Christian-Augustin Niculescu-Ciagarlash, said that due to the adopted amendments, both the rights of whistleblowers and the individual rights of individuals are respected. He named the areas in which the whistleblower law does not apply: national security, medicine, protection of information between a lawyer and a client.

The senators took into account some of the objections formulated by President Klaus Iohannis, but left others challenged by civil society.

Other disputed provisions

• In addition, a whistleblower is prohibited from publicly disclosing acquisition violations in areas the government deems important to national security without a specific, clear, distinct, and predictable definition of which particular whistleblower report is exempt from the whistleblower law.
• The whistleblower is free to directly address the media three months after the report or after an internal report.
• Integrity warnings can be destroyed after two years instead of 5 years as required by the Directive.

We will remind you that on June 29, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a draft law that harmonizes the European directive on whistleblowers. Passing the law on whistleblowers was part of the steps Romania must complete in order to receive European money from the PNRR.

Amendments made to the law by the legal committee of the Chamber of Deputies at the suggestion of PSD MP Laura Vikol prevent reporting of corruption and limit the rights of whistleblowers.

It should be noted that at the meeting of the legal committee, when amendments were made, proposed and supported by PSD, PNL and UDMR, the representatives of the Ministry of Justice agreed with them, clarifying that the form in which the project was presented to the parliament was agreed with the European partners.

President Klaus Iohannis sent the law back to parliament for reconsideration, and the Senate’s legal committee made the first amendments to the bill. It should be noted that the Senate is the first chamber to be consulted, and MPs will decide the final form of the law.