The two ruling parties stop seeing eye to eye on deadline to pass new Codes in the juridical system
The ruling Democrat Liberal Party (PDL) and the governing partner the Social Democrat Party (PSD) failed to find consensus over the deadline to adopt the new readings of the Civil and Criminal Codes, the former picking May 15 as previously agreed and the latter asking for a delay.
Leaders of the two parties met at the Senate this morning to tackle the issue. Before talks even started the general secretary of PDL, Vasile Blaga, said the party is in favor of going with the initial deadline of May 15 when the Codes should be steered through Parliament.
However, the president of the Bucharest organization of PSD, Marian Vanghelie, mayor of sector 5, said that the May 15 deadline is President Basescu’s idea. Basescu, before becoming a president in 2004, was the leader of PD-L and was many times accused of orchestrating the party from the shadow.
The hashing over this issue is another rift in the ruling coalition after PSD gained more ground once the minister for the relationship with the Parliament, Victor Ponta, stressed that the debate on the two Codes should take longer and not be rushed by a certain deadline.
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. Consequently, the president called the ruling coalition and the magistrates to a discussion on the steps the country needs to make in the field.
Following the meeting, leaders of the two parties established that by June, when the new EC justice report is due, the new Codes are adopted and the Parliament is granted a green light to started looking into corruption files of politicians.
The June justice report is crucial as the EC decides whether to keep or lift the monitoring on Romania’s justice system.
Another conclusion of the high level meeting was to pass the Codes by May 15 and if this plan fails the government will assume responsibility on the four fundamental laws of the justice system.
However, several voices inside PSD and the opposition party PNL, plus people from the civil society complained there are several stipulations of the two Codes that are constraining and should be corrected through public debates.