Premium
It is up to Parliament and the President of Romania to decide on individual or collective amnesty or pardon, and a general ban on granting them when certain offences are involved may not be imposed, according to a press statement released by the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) on Thursday.
At a plenary session on Thursday, CCR considered a legislative proposal to revise the Constitution initiated by opposition MPs of the Save Romania Union (USR), National Liberal Party (PNL), People's Movement Party (PMP) and PRO Europe. The court also looked into a legislative proposal for the revision of the Constitution initiated by MPs of the ruling coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).
In a unanimous ruling, the court ruled that the legislative proposals were initiated in compliance with the provisions of Article 150 (1) of the Constitution.
It also ruled that a pre-established constitutional ban on the vocation of citizens committing certain category of crime to benefit from amnesty or pardon "violates the principle of equality, the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms, and human dignity, a supreme value of Romania."
At the same time, according to CCR, the legislative proposals for the revision of the Constitution "excessively limit the state's power and its margin of appreciation, unacceptably affecting the exercise of public power in the favour/to the benefit of the citizens." Thus, a category of citizens would be denied a vocation because of circumstantial considerations, which in this respect equates to "a suppression of human dignity and the principle of equality," CCR explained.
According to the same ruling, the legislative proposals for the revision of the Constitution "do not respect the just balance" between two general interests, namely to execute/ consider executed a court judgment of condemnation only on grounds related to the conduct of the convict, which would be an expression of the efficiency of criminal justice and respect for human dignity and the principle of equality, thereby affecting the "sensible balance existing between the two interests of the state and society."
Regarding the revisions proposals according to which the citizens sentenced to deprivation of liberty for deliberately committing crimes cannot be elected to the bodies of the local public administration, the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the presidency of Romania, until an intervening situation that eliminates the consequences of the conviction, CCR has found that the limits of the review are not overstepped.
Regarding the provisions in the revision proposal of USR, PNL, PMP and PRO Europe that Romanian citizens have the right to vote and be elected to the European Parliament: no citizens may be elected to the European Parliament who are punished by deprivation of liberty for intentional offences, under a final and binding sentence, until a situation that removes the consequences of the conviction has occurred, CCR found that they do not violate the limits of the review.
The court also ruled that the provisions on emergency ordinances in the two revision proposals do not overstep the limits of the review.
According to the court, the provisions in the revision proposal initiated by USR, PNL, PMP and PRO Europe according to which CCR should rule on constitutionality objections over government ordinances at the request of the President of Romania, 50 MPs or 25 senators, the Supreme Court of Justice and Cassation, the Ombudsman, as well as the provisions of the proposal initiated by PSD and ALDE according to which CCR should rule on constitutionality objections over ordinances, at the request of the President of Romania, of the chair of one of the two chambers of Parliament, of at least 50 MPs or 25 senators do not overstep the limits of the review.
Regarding the provision in the proposal of USR, PNL, PMP and PRO Europe that CCR should rule on constitutionality objections over laws and ordinances filed with courts or commercial arbitration authorities, CCR noted that the abolition of abstract posteriori constitutional check exercised at the request of the Ombudsman is "a suppression of an institutional guarantee associated with the defence of fundamental rights and freedoms," which oversteps the limits of the review.
