May 2 (SeeNews) - Romania's president Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that he will ask the Constitutional Court to rule whether a package of justice bills drafted by the governing coalition complies with the constitution and will also notify the Venice Commission.
The legislation, drafted by the governing coalition of left-wing Social Democratic Party (PSD) and its junior partner Liberal-Democrat Alliance (ALDE), has been considered controversial by both politicians and magistrates. The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, composed of independent experts in the field of constitutional law.
"The original procedure, the unjustified rush, the authoritarian manner in which the parliamentary debates took place, resulted in a great deal of mistrust. The way PSD is handling judicial reform is still being contested by the professional associations of magistrates and arouses concerns of the foreign partners," Iohannis said during a televised news conference.
At the end of March, the upper house of Romanian parliament approved the bills, which critics say will weaken judicial independence by excessive politicisation. Iohannis needed to sign the bills in order for them to take effect.
Iohannis also called on the Constitutional Court to take its time and to work together with the Venice Commission on the legislation.
Some of the most controversial changes would cancel the president's right to veto the government's nominations for chief prosecutor and would empower the finance ministry to recover any losses stemming from a judicial error from the judge who had issued the sentence, rather than from the state budget.
The Council of Europe's Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) said last month that Romania needs to refrain from passing further amendments to the criminal law which could undermine its anti-corruption capacities.
"In 2017, a series of reforms were initiated concerning Romania’s justice system, prompting a wave of unprecedented public protests and concerns expressed by nearly half of the country’s judges and prosecutors, as well as by several countries and international institutions, about the consequences of the intended reforms for the independence of judges and prosecutors," a compliance report on Romania published by GRECO reads.
GRECO was founded in 1999 as a monitoring body for the compliance of its members with Council of Europe anti-corruption standards.
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