Ponta said senators will not vote on the ANI bill, as the latter does not observe the decision ruled by the Constitutional Court regarding the unconstitutionality of some of its provisions.
The Romanian Senate’s committees for legal matters and human rights adopted last week a favorable report on the ANI bill, with nine pro votes and seven abstentions. The bill, which had been approved by the Chamber of Deputies the previous day, was brought only one amendment and is due for plenary debates in the Senate Tuesday.
On July 19, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the revised version of the law regulating the activity of the ANI, after President Traian Basescu challenged the revised normative act’s constitutionality.
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.