Iordache to CCR: Early elections should be exclusively consequence of Parliament failing to function

Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Florin Iordache maintained on Monday, at the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), that early elections should only be triggered if Parliament is not functioning, not as a result of the political action of the head of state. "Early elections should be exclusively the consequence of Parliament failing to function and not a political purpose of the President or of a parliamentary minority resulting from the elections. In no case should the Legislative be placed in the situation of giving the vote of confidence to a government under the pressure of losing its mandate," said Iordache. In his opinion, the position of President Klaus Iohannis equates to an attack on another authority, in this case the Parliament. "We note that this obligation of the President is a genuine obligation of diligence, not a formal stage, lacking content. The President of Romania cannot exercise his constitutional prerogatives referring to the designation of the candidate for the position of Prime Minister with the deliberate purpose of starting a political crisis to dissolve Parliament, thus conferring to this competence a new unconstitutional connotation. This situation would equate to an attack on another public authority," Florin Iordache argued. The CCR is debating, on Monday, the complaint regarding a constitutional legal conflict between the President and Parliament in relation to the appointment of the leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Ludovic Orban, to form a new Government after the one he was leading was sacked through censure motion. According to the document signed by the leaders of the two chambers of Parliament, the conflict consists in "the President's exercising in a discretionary manner his constitutional powers, by designating on February 6 candidate Ludovic Orban as Prime Minister." At the start of the session, the President of the Constitutional Court, Valer Dorneanu, announced the joinder of the two complaints formulated by the leaders of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. AGERPRES (RO - author: George Onea, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Simona Iacob)