May 14 (SeeNews) - Thousands of Romanians held rallies on Saturday in Bucharest against new legislation sponsored by the ruling leftist coalition, which they see as an attempt to weaken the independece of the judiciary and backtrack on the fight against corruption through excessive politicisation, local media reported.
Some 5,000 gathered around a huge EU flag in front of the government headquarters in protest against a package of bills which would revoke the president's right to veto the government's nominations for chief prosecutor and would empower the finance ministry to recover losses stemming from a judicial error from the judge who had issued the sentence, rather than from the state budget, local media reported.
On May 2, Romania's president Klaus Iohannis said that he will ask the Constitutional Court to rule whether the justice bills comply with the constitution. Iohannis also said he will notify the Venice Commission about the planned legislation.
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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