Former Ministers Will Have Immunity No More

The Romanian minister of justice, Monica Macovei, said yesterday that former ministers will lose their immunity and that the Law for the accountability of ministers will be changed accordingly.

Justice Minister Monica Macovei says no former minister will be harassed by police after immunity will no longer be valid for them

"This was a requirement from the European Union that we were supposed to comply with by December. We will try to make the changes by the beginning of February," said Macovei at the meeting in Predeal mountain resort of Democrat Party deputies. She said that Art. 24# 2, which extended the immunity to former dignitaries, will be scraped.

"The EU request comes natural as it allows investigators to investigate wrong-doings committed while the person was holding public office," said Macovei. She also said that provisions in Law 161 for publicly stating ones personal wealth will be changed too. "The requirements to disclose one’s sources of income and personal wealth will expand. So far we have a few pages of new questions drafted," Macovei said, but refused to give details.

On the other hand, PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu said Thursday evening, in a talk-show on Realitatea TV private station, that he supports the proposal made by his deputy, Adriean Videanu, to make it compulsory for the whole population to state its sources of income and personal wealth.

Tariceanu said that Videanu talked to him about this proposal, before going public with it, and received his full support. This could be a way to assess how tax-payers are paying their dues, explained Tariceanu, and will not aim to punish the citizens.

"There is no room for these statements of personal wealth to be used against the interests of the citizens, said Tariceanu, as maybe it was the case during the communist regime. We want to have a yard-stick against which to tally how people are paying their taxes," added Tariceanu.

He also said that no extra numbers of civil servants will be needed in order to process these statements of personal wealth.

The minister of justice Macovei also said that she wanted to take out from the Criminal Code the provision making slander a criminal offense. Macovei said that she always advocated this change, no matter where she worked before [Macovei previously headed a non-governmental organization].

According to Macovei, the new Criminal Code will come into force on 1 June 2005 and until that date she wants a team in the Ministry of Justice to assess the changes still to be made to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Prosecution Process.