Traian Basescu will thus have to wait. PDL wanted the Court’s ruling to be read today but the proposal was rejected.
Suspended president Traian Basescu will have to wait several days before returning to the Presidential Palace. The joint plenum meeting of the two Chambers of Parliament will be convened on Monday at 3 PM in order for the Constitutional Court ruling on the July 29 referendum to be read, Mediafax informs.
Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) member of the Lower Chamber Ioan Oltean stated after the meeting of the joint Permanent Bureaus that PDL’s proposal for the joint plenum meeting to take place on Friday was rejected. The reason for the rejection was the fact that the MPs need time in order to return to Bucharest so that the quorum is met. The Speaker of the Lower Chamber stated that the CC ruling will be read in the plenum meeting and Parliament will take note of it on Monday. The ruling will then be sent to the Official Gazette.
Before the start of the Permanent Bureaus’ meeting on Thursday, Premier Victor Ponta stated that Social Democratic Party (PSD) MPs will not invoke the quorum in Parliament on Friday, August 24, and that the formality of taking note of the Constitutional Court’s ruling to invalidate the referendum has to be fulfilled. Asked whether he believes the quorum needed to read the CC ruling in Parliament on Friday will be met, Ponta answered that he disagrees “with the idea of playing around with the institutions’ quorums in the sense that if there’s no quorum at the CSM then there shouldn’t be one in Parliament either.”
Ponta made the statement in the context of an idea that circulated and according to which only if the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) has the quorum needed to take note of Mona Pivniceru’s resignation will there be a quorum in Parliament too so that the CC’s ruling to invalidate the referendum can be read and Traian Basescu can get back to office.
Referring to the possibility that Liberal MPs will boycott the meeting in which the CC ruling will be read, National Liberal Party (PNL) leader Eugen Nicolaescu answered: “I believe that if CSM responds to Traian Basescu’s political orders as rumored in several circles, then I believe we, the MPs, should act in the same way, namely Traian Basescu won’t return to the Presidential Palace until after CSM fulfills its duties.” Eugen Nicolaescu pointed out that this is “a personal opinion” that was not discussed within PNL or USL.
In other developments, PDL President Vasile Blaga stated on Wednesday that he ordered all PDL MPs to be present during Thursday’s meeting. Blaga stated that PDL was hoping that the Parliament meeting in which the CC ruling will be read will be convened on Friday and added that the Democrat-Liberals have the necessary signatures to convene the Permanent Bureaus in line with the joint meetings’ regulations. Mircea Toader, leader of PDL MPs within the Lower Chamber, pointed out on Wednesday that PDL was asking for an extraordinary Parliament meeting to be convened on Friday, adding that PDL has collected signatures for this purpose from the ethnic minorities’ MPs and from UDMR MPs.
Ponta asks Interior Minister to continue updating voters’ lists
Although the Constitutional Court has ruled to invalidate the impeachment referendum, Premier Victor Ponta has asked Interior Minister Mircea Dusa to tell local authorities to continue updating the lists of registered voters, giving his electoral college as an example. Thus, although 78,000 persons are living in Ponta’s electoral college the number of registered voters stands at 85,000. The Prime Minister told the members of government on Thursday that after the impeachment referendum procedures have ended “institutional lessons have to be learnt from what happened.”
CCR judges call for defamatory actions against the Court to stop
The judges of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) decided in Wednesday’s session to again make an appeal to public authorities, namely Parliament, Romania’s President, Romania’s government, the public central and local Administration and the judicial Authority to take measures against the defamatory actions against the institution they represent, according to a press communique Thursday, which also specifies that the CCR judges took note in Wednesday’ session of the “continuing attacks by some public authorities and the mass-media against the Constitutional Court”.
The CCR judges hold that, in order to re-establish a level of trustiness at all political levels in Romania, they must prove thru their actions in the coming months their pledge to the principles reminded by the European Commission in the report to the European Parliament and the Council over the progress made by Romania with respect to the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification. They also mentioned that the EC will closely monitor the relevant developments.
As a response to the judges’ request, PM Victor Ponta said, on Thursday, that he believes this appeal refers to some problems between judges themselves and not between judges and other institutions.
In an interview for Mediafax yesterday, independent Senator Mircea Geoana said that the CC judges signed their sentence by invalidating the referendum, and added that it is obvious that the political algorithm for their appointment will be modified in the future. “The current politic algorithm pattern for assigning the Court judges must be replaced with an American-type model most likely where the Supreme Court tries not only constitutional but civil and criminal cases as well,” Geoana said, who added that the Constitutional Court referendum invalidation decision deepens the political crisis, doesn’t solve it, and also creates the image of some state institutions which are non-functional and vitiated.
