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The Ministry of Justice has labeled as "slanderous and denigrating" the statements made by the Declic community saying that the Ministry of Justice opposes the modification of the law that would send child molesters to prison, while explaining that the project, which is currently being debated in Parliament, has serious deficiencies in terms of legislative technique.
Last week, the Declic community demanded public explanations from the Minister of Justice, Catalin Predoiu, after the Ministry led by him allegedly gave a negative opinion to the law that includes as rape any sexual act of an adult with a child under 16 years old, Agerpres.ro informs.
In response, the Ministry of Justice issued a statement on Monday accusing the Declic community of conducting a derogatory campaign and making defamatory statements against the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry also maintains that it cannot block a legislative initiative in Parliament, and that the draft, which is currently being debated in Parliament, has serious deficiencies in terms of legislative technique:
* The Ministry of Justice has supported and continues to support any institutional or legislative action that combats the phenomenon of sexual assault against minors;
* The Ministry of Justice will support such legislative steps insofar as they are not affected by serious errors of legislative technique, which may undermine the very purpose pursued by the respective legislative steps/projects;
* Project L494/2021 - Legislative proposal for modifying and supplementing the Criminal Code contains, unfortunately, serious deficiencies in terms of legislative technique;
* The point of view of the Ministry of Justice, if adopted by the Government first, on any legislative proposals is predominantly technical, and it cannot block the parliamentary procedure (of adopting or rejecting a parliamentary legislative initiative), given that it only has an advisory role.
* The Ministry of Justice has not yet communicated an official point of view on the draft law, at the meeting of the parliamentary committee that debated the project. The standpoint of the Ministry, expressed at the level of technical representative, was to indicate constructively the texts that, from the point of view of the legislative technique, present deficiencies and must be corrected.
The Ministry of Justice also brings several clarifications on the draft law, including:
* The Criminal Code, in its current form, does not exclude, but makes possible the classification of an act committed against a minor as rape, when it constitutes such an offence (see art. 218 paragraph (1) last sentence of the Criminal Code). The assessment of this aspect takes place by reference to each concrete case, the judicial body being the best positioned (and, incidentally, the only one able to determine), including as a result of having a psychiatric forensic examination, if the minor had the necessary discernment to issue a valid consent.
The legislative proposal transfers this assessment to the legislator, who could only do so by appealing to generalizations it cannot be derogated from (namely that all minors under the age of 16 have no discernment). This generalization (valid only in certain particular cases - minors of very young age, but inaccurate for all the others) would have implied the assumption of a margin of error, for the situations in which the rule of law does not correspond to the concrete factual situation, with the consequence of qualifying as rape such facts that do not have the characteristics of this crime.
* Contrary to what was stated in the press release of the Declic Association, the Romanian criminal legislation regulates the age of sexual consent, as a rule, to 16 years old and, in particular situations, to 18 years old.
