MP Eugen Tomac, the Executive President of the Popular Movement Party (PMP) announced on Friday that he raised a constitutional challenge related to some articles of the Law no.208/2015 on the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, in a trial pending at the Bucharest Court of Appeal, and that the Court has approved his request.
He stated that these articles establish the number of parliamentarians for Diaspora, referring to the representation norm.
“As a Deputy, I notified through the Court, the Constitutional Court on the unconstitutionality of the Law no.208/2015. We ask the Constitutional Court to decide as quickly as possible on the unconstitutionality of the Articles 4 and 5, para. 1, 4, 5 and 6, corroborated to the Article 25, Article 42 par.3 and Article 84 para.1 and annex 1 of the Law no.208/July 20, 2015 on the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and on organizing and functioning of the Permanent Electoral Authority”, stated Eugen Tomac in a press conference.
The PMP Executive President added that the notification will have to be “urgently” judged by the Constitutional Court because if it will accept the constitutional challenge, “the elections will have to be canceled”.
He explained that the trial from the CAB (Bucharest Court of Appeal), in which he has the capacity of an intervener, is started by an association operating in Diaspora – The “Fratii Golescu” Institute.
“The ‘Fratii Golescu’ Institute has challenged to the Court the Decision no.8/2016 issued by AEP (Permanent Electoral Authority – e.n.) related to the Electoral Register of the Romanians from abroad. At this organization’s request, I intervened in this trial, and as a Deputy representing Romanians from abroad, I raised the constitutional challenge on the representation norm of the Romanian citizens living abroad. (..) The trial started few months ago. Yesterday (on Thursday – e.n.), Bucharest Court of Appeal actually accepted my request related to the constitutional challenge (…) and notified the Court” stated Tomac.
He claimed that “there was no substantiation” from the Commission for the Electoral Code’s side, “sponsored by PNL and PSD”, regarding the establishment of the number of seats for Diaspora.
“The PSD and PNL representatives didn’t appreciate that it’s necessary to argue in any way the establishment of this representation norm of 4 Deputies and 2 Senators for the Romanians from abroad, given that this issue has been notified by the Legislative Council. We have also asked in our substantiation that CCR has to be notified on the unconstitutionality of these articles related to the representation norm”, said Tomac.
He stated that according to “the official statistics of the state”, the number of the Romanian citizens residing abroad, temporarily or permanently, reaches “more than 1 million”, out of a total of “3.5 million of Romanian people working abroad”.
“Based on this evidence, the number of the parliamentarians definitely should have been much higher”, claimed the PMP leader.
