Romanian Lower Chamber Legal Committee Adopts Restored Integrity Agency Bill

Prime Minister Emil Boc, who attended the first part of the meeting on Tuesday, supported the National Integrity Agency bill’s return to the form initially adopted by the Chamber of Deputies.

The committee decided to reintroduce the provision allowing the Agency to conduct its investigations as late as three years after the public servant leaves office, as well as the provision concerning a single wealth statement, both requested by Prime Minister Boc on behalf of the Government.

The amended bill also makes it mandatory for union leaders and members of the Economic and Social Council to submit wealth statements, the same as MPs, mayors and other categories of high public servants.

Committee chairman Daniel Buda said the wealth statements drawn up in accordance with the restored bill and published online will contain data on jewelry, accounts, homes, credit cards and contracts between high public servants and the state, leaving out personal information. He also said the committee struck any element perceived to breach norms on legislation from the bill, so that it would meet the requirements of the Constitutional Court and European Commission.

On July 19, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the revised version of the law regulating the activity of the ANI law, after President Traian Basescu challenged the revised normative act’s constitutionality. In his contestation, Basescu cited breaches of certain constitutional provisions regarding law adoption procedures and the powers of the two chambers of the Parliament.

Romania’s Parliament had amended the law regulating the country’s integrity agency, a EU-required anticorruption body that screened public officials’ wealth and recommended prosecution for alleged illicit gains in a move to tackle endemic corruption, after the country’s Constitution Court found the initial law unconstitutional. The new law, however, considerably weakened the agency’s powers and the European Commission said in its monitoring report the revised law was a significant step back in the country’s fight against corruption.