Romania’s President, Traian Basescu (pictured here), said that he would move on pushing a draft of a new constitution that removed the presumed innocence for assets, a method supported by some in the fight against corruption, but which was ruled to be unconstitutional by an advisory ruling by the Romanian Constitutional Court.
On June 17th, the Romanian Constitutional Court ruled that the draft constitution violated the fundamental principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty by forcing defendants to justify and explain how they came into possession of any given asset. While the ruling was only advisory in nature, Razvan Mihalascu, a political correspondent in Romania, argued that moral damage done to the draft constitution after the Court’s ruling will make it more difficult to pass.
Various political commentators, the American Embassy in Bucharest, and the Secretary General of the National Agency for Integrity (ANI), Horia Georgescu, have come out in support of the draft constitution.
For the original article from SETimes.com, please click here. Please note that the Photo of President Basescu is from Reuters and is also from the SETimes article.
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