USR submits in Parliament first 300,000 signatures for "No criminals in public office" initiative

Save Romania Union (USR) submitted on Thursday in Parliament the first batch of 300,000 signatures, of the one million collected in the "No criminals in public office" campaign, USR leader Dan Barna announced. 

"No criminals - this unprecedented citizens' initiative - has reached Parliament. We have tabled today the first batch of 300,000 signatures. Tomorrow we will submit the rest of 700,000 signatures and we will be entering the third stage after the collection of the signatures, after their validation by the mayors. Here we reach the parliamentary stage of the citizens' initiative. Beyond the siege under which this initiative has been constantly kept, beyond the initial contempt, beyond the surprise when the number of signatures exceeded one million, beyond the attempts of several PSD mayors who literally stole the citizens' signatures, either by refusing to validate them or by cutting them out in bad faith on purely absurd grounds, (...) we have exceeded the threshold of necessary signatures - we have one million signatures, 23 counties that went past the 20,000-signature threshold," Barna told a press conference in Parliament 

He said that USR's objective is that of bringing this initiative in Parliament's plenary session so as to be voted for and it reaches a referendum. 

"It is an objective that this party seriously and decisively takes upon itself and we are convinced that "No criminals in public office", this principle of the society's minimum morality will make it into Romania's Constitution. USR will have as one of the objectives when it comes to govern, the first objective will be to place the no criminals in public office into the legislation and into the Constitution, respectively," Barna added. 

According to Barna, USR is currently working on a documentary and a logbook of this campaign, because "it is an example that the civic spirit is reborn in Romania." 

The USR leader also said that these signatures will go to the Constitutional Court and then they will enter the parliamentary procedure.