NAD, the Senate Adopts the Troubling Decree

Yesterday, the Senate adopted the decree through which the organization and the functioning of the NAD (National Anticorruption Directorate) are regulated. The naming of the chief prosecutor is to be taken care of by another law in the future months.

109 votes for, one vote against and two withholds meant the Senators adopted the Urgency Decree regarding the transformation of the NAP (National Anticorruption Prosecutors’ Office) in a directorate of the General Prosecutor’s Office. The Minister of Justice, Monica Macovei, took part in yesterday’s voting. The decree has been adopted in the form agreed after the consultations at the Cotroceni Palace, where the deputies also agreed with it, and where all the parliamentary parties supported it. Monica Macovei, who noticed that the debate was on the autonomy degree of the new institution, has supported the text of the decree. The social-democrats wanted to mention a few things they didn’t agree with and they did it when Mircea Geoana contested the fact that the modifications in the structure and functioning of the institution that is representative for the fight against corruption are made through an UD, but not through a law that should be debated in the Parliament.

CONSULTATIONS

An amendment proposed by two SDP senators, Nicolae Serban and Antonie Iorgovan, which said the naming of the NAD chief-prosecutor should be done by the President at the suggestion of the SCM (Supreme Court of Magistracy), but not at the suggestion of the Minister of Justice, started a lot of controversies. The amendment, which was denied by the juridical commission on Wednesday night, has also been supported by the Conservative Senators. At Dan Voiculescu’s (the President of the Conservative Party) proposal, all the group leaders, together with the Minister of Justice, went to discuss upon this amendment.

DECISION

After the discussions, SDP decided to give up on the amendment. "The SDP group will withdraw its amendment. Minister Monica Macovei argued that there would be a public debate followed, after a month or two, by a project elaborated by the juridical counselors of all the parties, which will regulate not only the naming of all the prosecutors, but the naming of the NAD prosecutor as well. Everyone agreed with this", Dan Voiculescu concluded.

REACTIONS

The liberals saw the agreement as "reasonable", the DUHR (Democrat Union of the Hungarians in Romania) wanted the project’s elaboration to begin "as from that moment", and the SDP members seemed to agree with this solution "in principle". However, one of the amendment’s authors, Nicolae Serban, was very disappointed because he didn’t think it was normal for the amendment’s debate not to take place. "I don’t see any value in a deal with Minster Macovei", he argued. The other author, Antonie Iorgovan, seemed to agree with the idea of taking part in the commission that would elaborate the future project.

Translation by Sorin Balan