The United States must trust the Romanian Parliament, which aims to "strengthen the independence of the judiciary" and "to eliminate political influences in the functioning of the judiciary," reads a press release issued on Tuesday by the Senate's Speaker Calin Popescu-Tariceanu and the Chamber of Deputies' Speaker Liviu Dragnea.
"The United States must trust the Parliament of Romania, which aims to strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the elimination of political influence in the functioning of the Justice. The United States of America must trust the Romanian Parliament which is debating these days the reform laws of the Justice, because it is the same Parliament that adopted the Declaration on the anniversary of two decades of Romania-US Strategic Partnership, okayed the allocation of 2% of GDP for defense expenditures, decided the participation of Romania's armed forces in operation theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well in the cooperation within the anti-ISIS / DAESH coalition alongside the US and other allies, and adopted laws on the purchase of the Patriot anti-missile defense system," the release reads.
The heads of the two Chambers emphasize that the Romanian Parliament "took note with unpleasant surprise" of the release issued on November 27, 2017 by the US State Department on the debate on the reform of the judiciary.
"We want to point out that in any discussion with our partners we have to start from a fundamental constitutional principle, the same in the US and Romania, according to which the debates, decisions and votes in the Parliament take place in the name of the sovereignty of the people and cannot be the object of any form of pressure," reads the quoted communiqué issued by the heads of the two Chambers.
"We express the hope that the US State Department's statement was made in good faith, but we cannot avoid noting that it does not appear to be the result of a balanced, objective and comprehensive analysis of the facts, being rather the echo of some opinions in the Romanian public space. The nature and form of the US State Department's statement are incomprehensible in the context in which it is hard to imagine that in US could have occurred violations of the citizens' rights and freedoms that we often witness in Romania. It is hard to believe that in the US a prosecutor would allow themselves to present to the court forged interceptions or to blackmail the judge into bringing them into a criminal case unless they rule in their favor. It is hard to believe that in a consolidated democracy such as the US's, there are collaboration protocols between intelligence services and magistrates.
It is probably unconceivable in the American judiciary for the secret services' representatives to extend their tactical field to the courtroom and provide legal opinions to magistrates and afterwards to follow whether they rule in accordance with the suggested solutions. It is also unimaginable in the US that a high-ranking public official to refuse to appear before a parliamentary committee of inquiry, thus breaching clear decisions of the Constitutional Court. Last but not least, it is hard to believe that in the US a magistrate who flagrantly violates fundamental human rights has no responsibility before the law," the joint press release also reads.
The heads of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate state that "all these numerous abuses that have taken place in Romania are the main reason for initiating the debates on the reform of the judiciary, with each amendment adopted within the Special Commission being aimed at correcting abuses and the precisely documented vulnerabilities in the current judiciary."
AGERPRES .
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