Head of the Legal Committee of the Senate Robert Cazanciuc announced that next Tuesday the Senators from the Legal Committee will cast a vote with respect to the criminal proceedings initiated against the President of the Upper House of Parliament Calin Popescu-Tariceanu.
"As part of this procedure, in which the Senate is the receiver of the request for initiating criminal proceedings, it is mandatory to hear the Senator. We did this today, we had the mandatory hearing of Mr. Tariceanu, in order to be able to draft a proposal further to the Standing Bureau and the Senate plenary. Each member of the Legal Committee must give his/her opinion, so that in the end we decide if the Senate goes on or not with the request for criminal proceedings. The entire dialogue today was for this. We agreed with Mr. Tariceanu's lawyer that by Monday morning he will submit to us written notes in which he will respond to the questions of the members of the Committee and make the clarifications that Mr. Tariceanu or his lawyer need to make. After that, on Tuesday, within a week, we will submit the entire evidence to debate, taking into account all that we discussed today and the content on the written notes, and also on Tuesday we will vote on the request filed by the Prosecutor's Office," Cazanciuc said on Tuesday, after the hearing of Calin Popescu-Tariceanu by the Legal Committee.
The hearing lasted for approximately one hour.
The Legal Committee of the Senate must draft a report on the request of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) until December 10.
On November 7, the National Anticorruption Directorate asked the Senate to approve the commencement of criminal prosecution for Tariceanu, claiming that during the period 2007 - 2008, when he was a Prime Minister, he had indirectly received material benefits of about 800,000 US dollars from an Austrian company.
The Senate's Standing Bureau also assigned to the Legal Committee, two weeks ago, the DNA's request and the case targeting the President of the Upper House of Parliament.
The report of the Legal Committee will be included with the agenda of the plenary sitting of the Standing Bureau.