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Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu said on Monday that he presented the technical data and the history of the problem regarding the abuse of office to the National Liberal Party (PNL) MPs, adding that the ministry recommends that the threshold from which the abuse of office would be penalised should be set at RON 9,000.
"I have provided all the technical data regarding the history of this problem, the considerations of comparative law, and the crime phenomenon in Romania regarding the abuse of office. I could tell you that, at this time, there are 20 people in penitentiaries convicted for abuse of office. Nationwide, in all courts, including the courts of appeal and excluding the Supreme Court, there are 625 pending cases involving abuse of office. There are also 26 such cases pending before the Supreme Court," said Predoiu after meeting the PNLfloor group in the Chamber of Deputies.
He said that in 13 countries there is no threshold for the abuse of office crime.
"That's what I started with and that's what I told my fellow MPs. We did a research through the European judicial network and 13 countries do not have a threshold for abuse of office. There is Austria, which has a threshold of 50 million, and there are four other countries - Estonia, Latvia and two more countries - whose threshold is an indication of particularly considerable damage," explained Predoiu.
Initially, the Ministry of Justice, according to him, put the bill without a threshold up for public debate, reasoning that "as specified in a decision of the Constitutional Court dating to 2017, the legislator is responsible for establishing this threshold."
Asked how he came to the recommendation he made regarding a threshold RON 9,000, Predoiu said: "Starting from the 2018 decision of the Constitutional Court that a minimum wage is a derisory threshold, so we multiplied this minimum wage and we reached RON 9,000."
The PNL MPs in the Chamber of Deputies on Monday recommended that the threshold from which abuse of office is penalised should be two minimum wages, according to PNL floor leader Gabriel Andronache.
At a plenary session last Wednesday, the Senate adopted a government bill amending the Criminal Code and other pieces of legislation to align them with the decisions of the Constitutional Court, whereby the threshold for abuse of office, which is punishable by 2 to 7 years in prison, is set at RON 250,000. The bill is currently being considered by the Judiciary Committee of the Chamber of Deputies.
