Legal Committee

At an extraordinary meeting, the legal commission in the Bulgarian parliament adopted changes to the Criminal Code and the Law on Domestic Violence. Penalties for minor and moderate bodily harm are increased, and intimate relationships are equated to cases of domestic violence along with de facto conjugal cohabitation.

Without debate, with 19 votes "for", without a single "against" and "abstentions", the Legal Committee of the Parliament approved in the second reading the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, introducing a mechanism of control over the Prosecutor General.

After Russia announced on Tuesday evening that it had banned three pro-European Moldovan MPs and the Interior Minister, the targeted politicians said they had no plans to go there anyway.

The authorities in Moscow banned Interior Minister Ana Revenco and three deputies of the Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, Oazu Nantoi, Olesea Stamate and Lilian Carp.

Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev will most likely not appear before the Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, where he was invited to participate today in a "discussion related to the activities of the prosecution and investigation on the rule of law in relation to police violence against protesting citizens ".

Minister of Justice Stelian Ion announced on Monday that Parliament may meet in extraordinary session to discuss the bill on the repeal of the Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes (SIIJ), following the Venice Commission's favourable opinion, stressing that he expects the Senate to put this bill on next week's agenda.

Deputy Prime Minister Dan Barna, co-chair of the USR PLUS (Save Romania Union - Freedom, Unity, Solidarity Party) Alliance on Monday said that the modification brought by the Legal Committee of the Chamber of Deputies to the draft on the abolition of the Special Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes (SIIJ), which provides for the prosecution of magistrates to be done only with the ap

The Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday cleared the Government's bill on the measures foreseen during the alert state, including that Parliament is required to approve the state of alert if it is established in at least half the country. The bill passed by 267 'for" votes, 26 'against' and 5 abstentions.

Hungarian officials reacted with shock on Thursday after Laszlo Trocsanyi, the Hungarian candidate for the Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy post in the European Commission, was deemed unfit to serve as a Commissioner by the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, JURI.

Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber Liviu Dragnea has stated that none of the articles recently adopted by Parliament in the justice laws violates "such principles or existing articles of the Criminal Codes" in the EU states.

The Honorary Consuls Borislav Boyanov and Victor Melamed

also became members of FICAC Committees