Former President Traian Basescu announced that he will file a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for “the state’s abusive involvement in the registration of a party,” stating that the Court of Appeals decision is contrary to the ECHR decisions which recommend minimal involvement from the state in the approval of associative structures.
“I can tell you that we will definitely file a complaint at ECHR for the state’s abusive involvement in a party’s registration. In a country in which two or three parties are registered every day, I don’t think it is by chance that MP was precisely the party for which prosecutors fought, using the state’s entire strength, in order not to have it registered. (…) It is for the first time when a prosecutor is using the state’s entire strength against a party’s registration. It is, if you want, also contrary to ECHR decisions that recommend minimal state involvement in the approval of associative structures such as parties,” PMP President Traian Basescu said.
Traian Basescu stated that the prosecutor handling the case at the Bucharest Court really wanted to show that in Romania “the state is not a state.”
“The case prosecutor from the Bucharest Court really wanted to show that in Romania the state is not a state and some of the judges took that point of view into account, as a result the party’s registration was rejected,” Traian Basescu added.
Bucharest Court of Appeals dismisses registration of former President Traian Basescu’s party
The Bucharest Court of Appeals dismissed on Friday the request filed by former President Traian Basescu for registering the People’s Movement (MP) in the registry of political parties.
The Bucharest Court had admitted the registration of the MP in December 2015, but the Prosecutor’s Office of the Court filed an appeal, which was upheld by the Court of Appeals; its ruling is final.
The Congress meeting on setting up the People’s Movement as a political party was held on 24 October 2015; 5,000 voted Traian Basescu as party president.
The former President of Romania had joined the People’s Movement Party (PMP) on 9 October 2015 and then he proposed changing the party’s name into People’s Movement.
Basescu: Security cult has decided there should be only two parties?
Traian Basescu wrote on Facebook that he was surprised to find out that the change of MP’s name was rejected at the prosecutors’ request and wondered whether this decision is a consequence of the fact that “the National Security Cult has decided that there should be only two large parties.”
“With astonishment, I found out that the registration of the People’s Movement was rejected at the prosecutors’ request. It’s unprecedented for prosecutors to file an appeal against a party being registered. Moreover, Court of Appeals judges have admitted the appeal within a three-judge panel, despite the fact that new parties are being set up every day. We have to respect the decision,” Traian Basescu wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.
However, the People’s Movement leader harshly criticized the court’s decision. “Maybe it is the consequence of the fact that the National Security Cult decided that in Romania there should be only two large, controllable parties? You botched it up boys, we will run in the local elections under the PMP name and with the apple as a logo,” Basescu wrote, asking party members to redo the lists of signatures for local elections candidates.
