Leaders of Romania's ruling coalition decided yesterday to take responsibility for justice Civil and Criminal Codes in June after several meetings with NGOs, appointing Victor Ponta and Daniel Buda in charge of harmonizing all points of view regarding the content of the two documents.
“I was not consulted beforehand,” Predoiu said, adding he is pending a meeting with the prime-minister before publicly uttering his stance with respect to the issue. “I cannot comment on the political routes that led to this decision,” he added, explaining his term in the Cabinet is one predominantly technical. Predoiu is a lawyer and the only minister not part of any political party. He served as justice minister in the last few months of the outgoing Liberal government whose term ended in December last year. He was kept on the post by the new ruling Liberal Democrat (PD-L) and Social Democrat (PSD) alliance.
The minister complained his stand on the issue has been thwarted by the media and this did nothing but hurt the public debate on the two Codes. Still the faster passing of the Codes will definitely count in the June justice report carried by the European Commission. “The need to have new Codes is unquestionable and no one has denied this,” Predoiu told senators of the commission, pointing that the tendency to politicize the issue could hit its credibility.
Moreover, he pleaded for a compromise to have the Codes in the country’s Official Gazette, warning over the intransigency of the EC on carrying out the report.
Predoiu pointed that triggering the safeguard clause is still a possibility and pleaded for better applying of European norms in Romania which should impede activating the clause.
Romania’s Codes in the justice system date from the communist period, more than 20 years ago. The European Commission has many times criticized the slow pace of reforms in Romania’s justice system and the inefficiency in the fight against high-level corruption.
Romania joined the European bloc at the beginning of 2007 with the promise to root out corruption and carry serious justice reforms.
As for the Codes, the Criminal and Civil ones spurred numerous public rifts over some stipulations and caused disagreement between some of the PSD representatives and colleagues from PD-L. NGOs in the field also complained over what they call abuses inserted in the two documents.
The other two codes including the procedures were delayed until the fall.
