January 18 (SeeNews) - Romania has made extremely limited progress in implementing recommendations on preventing and combating corruption of parliament members, judges and prosecutors, the Council of Europe (CoE) said on Thursday.
Romania has satisfactorily implemented or dealt satisfactorily with only two of the thirteen recommendations to improve its fight against corruption, according to a compliance report issued by the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO).
GRECO is the Council of Europe anti-corruption body.
The report also indicated that four further recommendations have been partly implemented, while seven have not been implemented at all.
GRECO noted that the country's main initiative against corruption was the adoption of a code of conduct in October 2017 that aims to regulate gifts and other benefits, and the management of conflicts of interest. However, despite these positive developments, the rather broad wording of the code and inconsistent rules for its enforcement prevent it from providing a fully satisfactory framework, according to the report.
GRECO also said that Romania failed to improve the activity of its National Integrity Agency, as it still happens that elected officials remain in a situation of incompatibility and that court decisions are not enforced.
Also, measures to make the justice system more responsive to integrity risks are at an early stage, in particular when it comes to having the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM) and the Judicial Inspectorate play a more active role in terms of analyses, information and advice, GRECO said.
GRECO also regrets the absence of tangible action to ensure that the appointment and revocation for the most senior prosecutorial functions include a process that is both transparent and based on objective criteria. The SCM needs to play a stronger role in this procedure, GRECO said.
"The year 2017 is marked by a number of proposals and counter proposals concerning appointments, the disciplinary procedure and other aspects. Some of these are perceived as an attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and GRECO is concerned by the extent of public criticism," the report reads.
At the end of 2017, Romanians protested for seven Sundays in a row against against the government's plans to appoint the country's chief prosecutor without the consent of the president. Critics see this and other planned changes to the Criminal Code as attempts to weaken the fight against corruption.
GRECO concluded that Romania's currently very low level of compliance with the recommendations is 'globally unsatisfactory' and asked Romania to submit a report on the level of implementation of still pending recommendations by the end of the year.
In December, seven EU member states called on Romania's ruling leftist coalition to refrain from any action resulting in weakening of the independence of the judiciary and of the fight against corruption.
"We recognize that Romania has made significant progress in building a track record and implementing credible judicial reforms over the last decade. Yet, it is our belief that the recently passed laws on justice reform in their current form, as well as the latest draft amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, risk jeopardizing this progress," the embassies of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden in Romania said in a joint statement back then.
At the end of November, the U.S. State Department urged Romania's parliament to reject legislation that could weaken the anti-graft effort. "The United States notes with concern that the Parliament of Romania is considering legislation that could undermine the fight against corruption and weaken judicial independence in Romania," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at the time.
Romania received similar warnings from EU bodies, the U.S. and investors in February, when the Social Democrat-led government coalition's plans to include some corruption offences in a draft bill on prison pardons sparked the biggest nationwide protests since the fall of Communism. An estimated record 500,000 people gathered at the time in Bucharest and other Romanian cities seeking the government's resignation.
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