Former President of the Constitutional Court Augustin Zegrean said on Friday, on the RFIthat the fiscal measures bill, which the government has taken responsibility for in parliament, “has little chance of moving forward as it is”.

Zegrean gave as an example several incorrect technical procedures, such as the acceptance procedure.

“The Constitution states that the Government can take responsibility for a draft law, not for a draft of 70 laws. This law, for which they have taken responsibility, is or can be considered a government program, not a bill. Or the government’s program is not approved by the parliament in this way (…). So it doesn’t fall under Article 114, what they did is not in the spirit of Article 114 of the Constitution to take responsibility of the government,” Zegrean said.

He makes another argument: “Tax laws come into force after another current law, the Fiscal Code, tax laws come into force six months after their adoption or from the beginning of the following year. This was also not followed.”

“In the practice of the Court, starting from 2009-2010, there are many decisions that analyze what it means to take responsibility, what the Government can take responsibility for and how it should be done. This law does not fit there,” he told RFI.

• VIDEO The government took responsibility in the parliament for new taxes – FINAL DOCUMENT / Cholaku: Fraud is over for today / Protests by USR and AUR

USR and Forţa Dreptei filed a legal appeal to the Constitutional Court on Friday regarding some fiscal measures for which Prime Minister Marcel Čolaku took responsibility in parliament.

Protest against the government’s assumption of responsibility in the parliament Photo: Inquam Photos / George Călin

The signatories refer to the fact that the conditions for holding the Government accountable were not met. They also claim that the Prime Minister violated 13 articles of the Constitution with the draft law.

“The government has taken responsibility for the package of laws. Changes were made to 22 normative acts. This is not the only draft law, the condition of immediate application of the law is not met. This is an orange ball throughout this project, some provisions apply on October 1, some provisions apply next year, some in 2025. CCR has said countless times that this is wrong and has accepted complaints of unconstitutionality. He made it clear that when you take responsibility as a government, you have to commit to something urgent, something that applies immediately, and you have no other choice. In our case, as I have already said, we made a reform that is applied non-unitarily. It was not an emergency situation, it had to be passed through the parliament,” said the spokesman of the Ukrainian SSR, Ionuts Mostianu.

The message, signed by the parliamentarians of the UDR and forces, states that the method of adoption of the Law (…) contradicts the provisions of Art. 1 paragraph (4) and Art. 114 of the Constitution of Romania, reissued, since the fundamental norm allows the government to take responsibility for the draft law, subject to the principle of balance and separation of powers in the state”, refer to USR and Forța Dreptei. in your message.

The signatories note that the ability of the Government to enact laws, as a delegated legislative body, cannot be discretionary, this prerogative is not a right that cannot be abused, because otherwise the fundamental principle of the separation of powers will be allowed to be bypassed, enshrined in Art. 1 paragraph (4) from the Constitution of Romania.

“This simplified legislative method must be achieved in extreme cases when the adoption of a draft law in the ordinary or emergency procedure is no longer possible, or when the political structure of the parliament does not allow the adoption of a draft law in the ordinary or emergency procedure,” the document also states.

Also, the signatories claim that the adoption in the form of assuming responsibility was untimely, “especially since the entry into force of this law does not happen immediately.”

“In the current political context in Romania, we notice that we have a consolidated majority in the parliament thanks to the cooperation between the two parties to form the government. Therefore, according to the practice of the Constitutional Court, there was no need to resort to the procedure provided for by Article 114 of the Constitution,” the message also states.

They also note that “the validity of the specified regulatory act does not comply with the constitutional principles.”

“Under the pretext of developing a draft law, for which the Government should be responsible, changes were made, which, in fact, have the value and impact of a reform, a government program. In this case, it would be imperative, from a legal and constitutional point of view, that these changes be presented and adopted in the form of a reform, if desired, with all necessary consultation and impact assessment. This led to the implementation of large-scale, complex legislative changes, creating a context of vagueness and unconstitutionality promoted under the name of “the bill,” the report also said.

It should be noted that the document also bears the signatures of two liberal parliamentarians, Dan Vilčanu and Gheorghe Pechingine.

Three days ago, Prime Minister Marcel Cholaku took responsibility before the parliament for the package of budgetary fiscal measures.