President plans to call cross-party consultations on justice package (sources)

President Klaus Iohannis intends to invite next week the leaders of the parliamentary parties to consultations on the justice package, political sources told STIRIPESURSE.RO

The head of the state urged Parliament to take into account the opinions of the Venice Commission and reassess the amendments to the justice package, but also to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, so as to put an end to "the negative impact on justice and the rule of law."

Iohannis considers that the very serious aspects the Venice Commission takes issue with regarding the amendments to the laws of justice and to the criminal codes send an unequivocal signal the current government and parliamentary majority must take into account in order not to push Romania in a direction that is incompatible with the values of the European Union.

"The two opinions of this European forum are extremely critical and confirm, as predictable, all the irregularities the President of Romania, the parliamentary opposition, the civil society, the Superior Council of the Magistrates, judges and prosecutors have been pointing fingers at for more than one year now," shows a release on Friday.

The Venice Commission adopted on Friday a report that is highly critical of the amendments to the criminal codes, cautioning that the adopted amendments weaken the efficiency of the criminal judicial system in the fight against corruption, violent crime and organized crime.

The Venice Commission recommends the Romanian authorities to proceed to fully reassessing the amendments to both codes through a broad and efficient public consultation process, so as to put together solid and consistent legislative proposals, broadly backed by the Romanian society, to take into account the applicability standards and follow the recommendations of the Constitutional Court.

In this context, President Iohannis firmly condemned the "irresponsible behavior" of Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader, blaming him of having definitively compromised his credibility, which is solid enough reason to hand in his resignation from office."

"President Klaus Iohannis strongly condemns the irresponsible behavior of the Minister of Justice who, under the pretext of implementing the recommendations of the Venice Commission into Emergency Ordinance No. 92/2018, included provisions that are completely unrelated to or even contrary to the recommendations, which is likely to increase the concerns of our European partners," the release reads.