CCR: September 28 - deadline for conflict between Government and Parliament on issue of censure motion

The Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR) is to discuss on September 28 the notification regarding the existence of a legal conflict between Parliament and the Government on the censure motion initiated by MPs of the Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity Alliance (USR PLUS) and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), CCR officials specified on Thursday.The parties involved had until Wednesday to submit their points of view to the Constitutional Court.The Prime Minister filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court regarding the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between Parliament and the Government, alleging "unconstitutional conduct, both unfair and abusive, towards the executive authority", as the motion was initiated, filed and communicated with "violation of the constitutional provisions of Article 113 (2) of the Constitution"."In our opinion, there is a conflict in the sense of Article 146 letter e) of the Constitution, as the Romanian Parliament, through the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, sent to the Romanian Government a censure motion initiated, filed and communicated in violation of the constitutional provisions of Article 113 paragraph (2) of the Constitution, which constitutes an unconstitutional conduct, both unfair and abusive, towards the executive authority and which generated a conflict situation whose origin results from the constitutional text itself. Thus, in the present request, we call on the constitutional court to find the existence of a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the Romanian Parliament, on the one hand, and the Romanian Government, on the other hand, resulting from the violation of the constitutional provisions on how to the censure motion was initiated and submitted, respectively from the violation of the constitutional provisions regarding the way in which the censure motion initiated and submitted contrary to the Constitution was subsequently communicated to the Government," reads the referral.According to the document, "The Romanian Parliament, through the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, violated the constitutional provisions regarding the obligation to communicate the censure motion to the Government on the same day with its submission, in this case on September 3, 2021. Also, the Romanian Parliament, through the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, in violation of the Constitution and the regulatory provisions, communicated a censure motion initiated and submitted in violation of the constitutional requirements regarding the minimum number of valid signatures that reflect the manifestation of the will of a quarter of the number of MPs at the initiation date of the respective motion.These aspects are likely to create a conflicting legal situation generated by the unconstitutional way in which Parliament understood to trigger the parliamentary control through a censure motion, with "serious" consequences on the proper performance of the Government's activity in terms of domestic and foreign policy, namely the good functioning of the public administration, the Executive claims.It is also added in the document that the disputed legal situation is constitutional in nature given that the motion of censure belongs to the field of constitutional law and is a constitutional instrument for parliamentary control over the activity of the Government, and the referral aims at "the interpretation of Article 113 paragraph (2) of the Constitution by reference to the acts and deeds performed by the Romanian Parliament, which, if found to be contrary to the constitutional norms, also generated a constitutional blockade from the perspective of the full and proper performance of the Government's activity"."At the same time, by referring to the role of the Constitutional Court as guarantor of the supremacy of the Constitution and considering its constitutional duty to resolve legal conflicts of a constitutional nature between state authorities, exclusively regarding the procedure of parliamentary control by censure motion, we indicate to the constitutional court that the only constitutional solution for removing the legal consequences of a censure motion initiated, filed and communicated in violation of the Constitution is the admission of the present request," the Government transmitted.