PNL's Orban asks Criminal Codes debate to be suspended until Venice Commission issues opinion

PNL (National Liberal Party) leader Ludovic Orban on Tuesday asked the speakers of the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament, Liviu Dragnea and Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, to suspend the legislative process of bringing modifications to the Criminal Code and possibly the Criminal Procedure Code too, until the Venice Commission issues an opinion about the proposed solutions.

"We ask you, on behalf of the National Liberal Party (PNL), to suspend the legislative process of bringing modifications to the Criminal Code and, possibly, the Criminal Procedure Code too, until the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) issues its opinion related to the proposed legislative solutions. We are asking you to act, in your capacity as Speaker of the Senate/Speaker of the Deputies Chamber and leaders of the PSD-ALDE ruling coalition, to the best interests of the Romanian state. Otherwise, by continuing with this process of bringing modifications to the laws in the criminal field, while ignoring at the same time all the signals that you received related to them, you risk to bring severe prejudices to all the Romanian citizens," read the letter sent by Orban to the speakers of the two chambers of Parliament.

Ludovic Orban also referred in his letter about the report of the European Commission regarding the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism of November 15, 2017, the repeated requests of the European officials to take into account the assessment made by the experts of the Venice Commission in the process of bringing modifications to the justice laws, the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, the repeated stands of the Occidental states' embassies, both partners from the EU and NATO, the ad-hoc GRECO report and the acceptance of the PNL request to have the Venice Commission notified about the modifications brought to the justice laws, Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, through the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The PNL head motivated his request by saying that Romania belongs to the EU, NATO and the Council of Europe, and by mentioning the conditionalities accepted by the country when it entered the EU and the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification was established, alongside the ratification by our country of the United Nations Convention against corruption through Law no. 364/2004.