PSD: President Iohannis is blocking governmental investments

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) condemns "the repeated" actions of President Klaus Iohannis through which "he is trying to block the activity of the Government, with the sole purpose of hindering the PSD to complete the electoral commitments which it took on in the governing programme," a PSD release sent to AGERPRES on Friday informs.

"The second refuse of President Iohannis to issue the appointment decrees for the persons proposed at the Transport Ministry and the Regional Development and Public Administration Ministry represents an irresponsible attempt to block governmental investments in the most important areas for improving the standard of living of Romania's citizens: infrastructure, transport and local development," the PSD release mentions.

According to the quoted source, the head of state "deliberately breached, on several occasions, Romania's Constitution and the decisions of the Constitutional Court [CCR]."

"On the one hand, Klaus Iohannis breached the CCR Decision no.875/2018, by refusing to immediately respond, in writing and motivated, to the first proposals submitted by the Prime Minister, namely the refusal to appoint Mrs Lia Olguta Vasilescu as Minister of Transport and Mr Ilan Laufer as Minister of Regional Development and Public Administration. On the other hand, Klaus Iohannis also breached the CCR Decision no. 98/2008, which prohibits Romania's President to refuse the second proposal for the minister office in case of a government reshuffle. At the same time, by defying the Constitution and the rule of law, the President entered in a complicity of criminal nature with Romania's Prosecutor General Augustin Lazar, already proposed to be revoked for particularly serious disciplinary misconduct and for the serious violation of the law and the fundamental rights of humans," the PSD argues.

In the Social-Democrats' view, by refusing to issue the decree on Lazar's removal from office, "the President commits an act of influence peddling over the one who leads the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice [PICCJ], where a criminal case is under investigation regarding the acquisition through forgery and use of forgery of some properties by the presidential family."

"This unconstitutional protection that Klaus Iohannis and the chief of the PICCJ grant to each other cannot be seen outside the context in which the President's wife has repeatedly refused to appear for hearings before the PICCJ in a criminal case - putting herself above the law and in contempt of the legal obligations that any other citizen of Romania has. The PSD will make use of any legal and constitutional means at its disposal to defend the constitutional order and the rule of law, while also ensuring the minimum political stability necessary during the period when Romania holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union," the PSD release showed. AGERPRES (RO - author: Livia Popescu, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Rodica State, editor: Adina Panaitescu)