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The seven reasons for the suspension of President Traian Basescu
Traian Basescu violates procedure of revising Constitution
The President started an unconstitutional draft law on revising the Constitution and violated the procedure of revising it that was stipulated by the fundamental law, says the ruling alliance of the Social Liberal Union (USL) in the petition for suspending Traian Basescu, which was sent on Wednesday to the heads of the two chambers of Parliament.
In the opinion of USL, another action taken by Traian Basescu that ran counter to the Constitution is the decision to send Parliament a draft law on revising the fundamental law, which was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Romania.
'Thus he again assumed the role of the Government and inverted the roles stipulated by the Constitution, which reads that the proposal for the revision of the fundamental law is to be made by the Government: ‘Art 150 (1) The revision of the Constitution can be initiated by Romania's President at the proposal of the Government, by at least one fourth of the number of deputies or senators, as well as by at least 500,000 citizens that have a vote',' informs the above-mentioned document.
According to it, in this case the draft law on revising the Constitution was sent by the President to the Government, which sent it back to the President. 'The Constitutional Court found unconstitutional elements, but the President decided nevertheless to send the revision draft law to Parliament,' says USL.
USL supports this statement through a declaration made by Basescu on June 21, 2011: 'As concerns the second part of the talks with the majority coalition. I decided, as soon as possible, namely immediately after the arrival at Cotroceni of the ruling of the Constitutional Court, to send Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies the draft law on revising the Constitution, with the main aim of observing the vote the Romanians cast in the referendum of November 2009. This is the aim I have pledged to achieve and I am going to observe it.'
'The procedure applied by the President is obviously a serious violation of the Constitution both as regards the way it started, the President, not the Government initiated it, and in point of disregarding the ruling of the Constitutional Court on the conformity of the draft law with the fundamental law, which is compulsory,' says USL in the petition for the suspension of the Head of State.
President Basescu rejected real dialogue with political parties, except for PDL
President Traian Basescu has made actual political actions that has turned him into the de facto leader of the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) and throughout his entire term in office he rejected real dialogue with political parties, with the exception of the PDL, the ruling Social Liberal Union (USL) is claiming in its request for the suspension of President Traian Basescu.
'President Traian Basescu has substituted for Emil Boc not just as prime minister, but also as chairman of the PDL. He frequently took part in the meetings of this political party and discussed with its representatives the guidelines of economic and social policies. Given the circumstances, there is no impartiality and neutrality asked for from a real president (Article 84) that has to reflect in the manner the president relates to all the political parties,' reads the suspension request.
The initiators point to Article 84(1) of the Constitution that says, 'While in office, Romania's President shall not be a member of any political party or hold other public or private office.'
USL claims that the President's attitude is 'a flagrant example of political partisanship because of active participation in the internal life of the PDL.'
'As a matter of fact, throughout his entire term in office, Traian Basescu's attitude was to reject real dialogue with political parties, with the exception of his own party, the PDL, which he commended, supported and led in an authoritarian manner. Traian Basescu acted on the political stages of the country as a de facto chairman of the PDL,' reads the request.
In this case, the suspension advocates claim, the President 'flagrantly violated' Articles 80 and 84 in the Constitution, mentioning that Article 80 says Romania's President represents the Romanian State and is a guarantor of national independence as well as territorial unity and integrity and that he makes sure the Constitution is observed and public authorities function. To this end, the President is a mediator among the state powers, as well as between the State and the society.
'Mr. Basescu constantly participated in various meetings of the this party and actively took part in the party's decision making process. His behaviour was obviously of a party leader, instead of of an impartial country president. What's more, the President even attended the summer school of the PDL Youth Organisation,' reads the request.
The suspension initiators also claim that under his latest term in office, Basescu had at least 20 meetings with leading figures of the PDL outside the framework of consultations with the parliamentary parties.
'No such meeting occurred with any other party that was also in the Opposition back then. The repeated attacks, offences and denigrations against the leaders of the other parties, which culminated with the recent threats against the chairman of parliamentary parties, reveal a clear lack of neutrality on the part of Romania's President and a clear disregard of Articles 8, 80(2), 82(2) and 84(1) of the Constitution,' the suspension initiators also claim.
President instigated to infringement of CCR rulings and applied direct pressure on judges
The President instigated to the breach of Romania's Constitutional Court rulings and applied direct pressures on the CCR judges, making them 'visits' before important decisions, the Social Liberal Union (USL, alliance, at rule) claims in its request to suspend Traian Basescu from office, sent on Wednesday to the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament.
'President Traian Basescu has seriously violated the constitutional provisions when he publicly declared, on November 16, 2011, that the personal regime established under his rule does not intend to respect the Constitutional Court decisions. The public announcement made by PNL and PSD parliamentarians, that they will address the Constitutional Court on the decision by which the Government was set to freeze pensions and public employees wages throughout 2012 was followed by a surprise visit to the Constitutional Court of President Traian Basescu, in an obvious attempt to put pressure on the judges of the Court. Shortly, in a declaration on the public radio, Traian Basescu said in an obvious disrespect of the authority of the Constitutional Court and of the Constitution that no other decision of CCR was going to radically change the coalition's decision to maintain freezing of wages and pensions during the year 2012 ', the request for suspension underlines.
USL uses as an argument a statement made by Basescu on November 16, 2011: 'Whatever the outcome of the Constitutional Court (the disputed decision to freeze pensions and public sector wages in 2012 - editor's note), there is no money. If there was money, they would be paid. We can live by borrowing money for the government - but it would be easier to show generosity, and condemn the country for next year. We lived that in 2007 and 2008 '.
According to USL, such actions and statements 'represent, without doubt, contempt and a serious breach of the Constitution provisions, which stipulates clearly the undisputed supremacy of the Constitutional Court rulings'.
Suspension initiators claim that President Traian Basescu named Petre Lazaroiu for a second term at the Constitutional Court, 'in violation of Art. 142, para. 2 of the Constitution, which states that Court's members mandate can not be renewed'.
President Basescu made a practice of instigating social categories
President Traian Basescu has made a practice of instigating social categories against each other in an attempt to divide the society so that he may amass as much political power as possible, the authors of the request for office suspension of President Traian Basescu claim.
'To this end, the President has made innumerable public statements in an attempt to stir the hatred of the youth against pensioners, of private employees against public employees, of patients against doctors and of parents against teachers,' reads the request.
The request carries President Basescu's May 2010 statement, 'To be plastically, an image has come to my mind now: the State is like an obese man that is piggybacking a thin man. This is how the Romanian economy looks like. And the three million people working in Romania's services and industry were saddled with the huge Government spending.'
The request also carries Basescu's statement of January 2011 in the same context, 'And I also want to mention why we are not ready to satisfy those who made the military into a full career and then begged for the public money, like one billion lei when they retired.'
The suspension advocates claim such public interventions violate the role of the president as the mediator between the State and the society, as provided for in the Constitution.
President Basescu violated fundamental principle of representative democracy
The Social Liberal Union (ruling alliance, USL) claim in their petition to suspend the president that Traian Basescu has severely violated the Constitution and the fundamental principle of the representative democracy when he claimed he would not have appointed a prime minister from USL even if they had managed to get absolute Parliament majority.
'Similar to the statements regarding the violations of the Constitutional Court rulings, the President also made statements suggesting that he would not respect the future decisions of the body of qualified voters: 'I am not playing a Constitution game. It must be read correctly, and [the article] 103 deals with political parties, not alliances. The alliances are unstable. [The Opposition] should read this article and realise what happened at these [partial] elections and decide accordingly. If there is a party within USL alliance which has 51 percent of the MPs, I will not call anybody else [to the negotiations] other than the people in that party,'' USL says in their petition to suspend Traian Basescu sent to the leaders of the two Parliament chambers on Wednesday.
President Basescu usurped the office of prime minister
President Traian Basescu has usurped the office of the prime minister and substituted for the constitutional power of the Government, and this is one of the main reasons why the ruling Social Liberal Union (USL) is requesting the suspension from office of President Traian Basescu.
'Through his political behaviour, the President has been promoting a state of continual violation of the constitutional framework as he has substituted for the Government in making economic and social decisions and exercised the powers specific of the prime minister's office, thus seriously violating the Constitution. The President's actions generated economic and social measures that affected vulnerable social categories, such as pensioners and children. Traian Basescu contributed to the worsening of the problems of these categories when he resolutely advocated cutting public pensions or taxing them or when he wanted to be tougher, as he himself stated in his statement on the non-payment of child allowances,' reads the request for suspension.
The suspension advocates use the President's statements as arguments, claiming 'there have been innumerable instances' in which he acted as a prime minister by assuming measures such as the drawing up of a new education law and cutting public pensions and wages.
'At other times, the President gave precise orders to the Boc Cabinet, such as no arrears should be paid on drugs. Each time, the ‘opinions' of the President became the law in Romania. Another situation emerged when the President convened ad-hoc groups to discuss issues that the Constitution says are the competence of governmental structures, such as the military pensions. Back then, a working group of the President was convened that directly decided what the Government has to do to escape an administrative blockage,' the suspension request claim.
The suspension advocates claim that the worst situation was that generated by the President's announcement in May 2010 that public pensions and wages will be cut.
'In that instance, the President substituted for the Government and, what's more, the measures announced proved to be unconstitutional, at least as far as the pensions were concerned. Thus, at least in the case mentioned above, the President acted directly, having asked the Government to implement certain measures; Prime Minister Emil Boc listened, but the measures were ruled unconstitutional. This is obviously a highly grave situation and the President cannot run away from accountability: it was him who ordered the Government to act outside the confines of the Constitution. Moreover, the measures imposed by the President had very serious economic and social consequences, as many Romanians were thrown into poverty,' the initiators claim.
President has repeatedly disregarded fundamental rights and liberties of citizens
The President has repeatedly disregarded the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizens included in the Constitution, that being one of the reasons brought up by the MPs of the ruling Social Liberal Union (USL, alliance) in their petition to suspend the Head of State.
'By his public statements, unfit with the role and bearing of a president, Traian Basescu has willingly disregarded the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizens included in the Constitution. ... Both the fact that he announced the austerity measures in 2010 and the fact that they will continue during 2012 represent an utter lack of responsibility and a flagrant breach of the role and duties written in the Constitution,' reads the document.
According to the quoted source, 'the President is a potential factor of social conflict between the active workforce and pensioners,' considering his statement on September 19, 2011 according to which 4.2 million employees cannot support 4.9 million pensioners. 'The President should not wait for a conflict to arise in order to appease it, he must prevent such situations instead,' reads the USL document.