USR's Barna says USR-PLUS alliance asks President Iohannis to start justice referendum

The Save Romania Union (USR) - PLUS Alliance is calling on President Klaus Iohannis to start a referendum on justice legislation, USR national leader Dan Barna said on Thursday adding that the former chief corruption prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi being asked to report to the magistrates investigation section on the day she was scheduled to be in Brussels is not accidental.

"There is nothing accidental about Mrs Kovesi being called exactly when she was going to Brussels to promote her candidacy. I do not think there is a good faith citizen in Romania who could imagine that this did not happen at the direct behest of [opposition national leader] Liviu Dragnea. Liviu Dragnea, [Senate majority leader] Tariceanu and [justice minister] Tudorel Toader are desperate, because a possible appointment of Mrs Kovesi as European prosecutor would refute all the poisoned rhetoric he has been spreading all over Romania for two years. Kovesi as a prosecutor would show all Romanians, the few who still believe in Liviu Dragnea, that what he does to Romania is called abuse, and what he has been telling Romania for two years are ordinary lies. It is not by accident that the Venice Commission has said very clearly in its recommendations that besides the criminal codes and justice legislation this special section investigating supposed wrongdoings of magistrates has to be discarded because in real life it is a political police that Mr Dragnea has built for himself and whose first victim is Mrs Kovesi these days. From this perspective, the USR-PLUS alliance is calling on President Iohannis to initiate a referendum on justice," Barna said at Parliament Palace.

He added that it is the best time for the Romanian society to have this debate, and the question for the referendum should be: "Do you agree that the criminally convicted persons should no longer be allowed to run for elected offices in Romania?." AGERPRES (RO - author: Dana Piciu, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Corneliu-AurelianColceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)