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The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), on Thursday, rejected as inadmissible the notification of the Ombudsman in respect to the emergency ordinance regarding the amendments to the Criminal Codes. "We were notified by the Ombudsman in regards to the constitutionality of the GEO No.13/2017. In such cases, in the first place we verify if the notification is legal and secondly we verify if the request is admissible. We established, while checking the legality of the notification, that the Ombudsman was entitled to make the notification on an ordinance which was in force. In respect to the admissibility of the request, according to the article 29 in our law of organization, we verify the constitutionality of laws and ordinances in force. (...) The Ordinance No.13 was repealed, it's true that it was repealed after the notification of the Ombudsman, and from this point of view, we cannot establish the notification admissibility if the ordinance gathered the extraordinary conditions of opportuneness, on the content, or on the extrinsic method of control. In these conditions, with majority of votes, we have decided to reject the notification, as it became inadmissible. I said that "it became inadmissible," because the repeal came up after our notification," President of the CCR Valer Dorneanu stated.
He added that the CCR often gave opinions in respect to the unconstitutionality objections that were raised by the parties throughout the trials and in some cases the Court can also continue the investigation on the repealed acts when they generated judicial effects. "In the notification made by the Ombudsman, we have jurisprudence and decided to reject as inadmissible or becoming inadmissible, precisely because in this case we make an analysis of the ordinance in an abstract manner, as we call it, and not enter in its content. We make the same analysis as in the case of exceptions raised in trials, where we take into account the presence of the parties and the effects which occurred to the parties involved in the trial. (..) Neither the intervention of the prosecutor, (...) nor the examination that we conducted has established elements that were already in force, that were already generating judicial effects. If such things exist, remedies will also exist, stipulated by the Constitution and by our law of organization," Dorneanu added.
When asked about the possible consequences of rejecting the GEO No.14/2017, Dorneanu mentioned that the CCR does not rule on a case based on suppositions. "Both from the Ombudsman and the prosecutor plea, we deducted that we should rule on the constitutionality, because the GEO No.14, which repealed the GEO 13, might be in its turn repealed and then I don't know what consequences will be generated. We don't rule on a case based on suppositions, possibilities, the moment when someone challenges the GEO 14 then the person who will be forced to solve it will establish all the outcomes related to the Ordinance effects that might occur. The correlations of that case will be made then, not now. (...) The GEO No.13 is no longer in the legislation in force," Dorneanu explained.
