Romania’s Chamber of Deputies endorsed the controversial Code of criminal prosecution procedures on June 18, by 178 votes to 75 and one abstention. 

The bill was passed late in the night under accelerated procedures, and opposition deputies claimed procedures were breached, primarily because they did not receive the draft in advance. The opposition National Liberal Party said that it would challenge the bill at the Constitutional Court.

Among the controversial provisions of the bill, sentences declared prior to the enactment of the new criminal prosecution procedures can be challenged based on the new procedures. Another controversial provision of the new bill allows the challenging of a ruling not drafted and signed by the same judge who actually managed the case from the very beginning. The two provisions combined open a door for the ruling coalition’s leader Liviu Dragnea to invalidate his two-year suspended sentence, since the final sentence was drafted by the judge who replaced the retired judge who had managed the case.

There are other controversial provisions of the bill endorsed by the deputies on June 18. Among them, a superior court can change an inferior court’s ruling only based on new evidence. Notably, the rulings on similar cases diverge significantly among various courts in Romania and superior courts revise inferior courts’ rulings to achieve certain degree of coherence. 

Under another provision, evidence resulting from investigations in one case cannot be used in another case. This is relevant since the anticorruption prosecutors have extensively used evidence (typically phone call tapping) from one case to indict people involved in other cases. 

Separately, under another provision of the new procedures, an indicted person can benefit from partial pardoning in exchange for testifying about others’ actions only if he or she testifies within six months after the actions were taken. Anticorruption prosecutors have extensively based their cases on testimonies (as opposed to evidence).