(story to be published in tomorrow's issue, March 21)
The Liberals (PNL) and the Peasants (PN?CD) agreed at the end of last week to negotiate for a month the package of laws on reform of justice, before the Government should assume responsibility for the laws on which agreement will be reached, while the Democrats continue to deem as "inappropriate" the adoption of the initiative of Valeriu Stoica through this procedure. In this sense, PD (Democrat Party) vice-president Traian Basescu announced on Friday that his party "would not unconditionally gratify the ambitions of a low quality lawyer who accidentally got to lead the Justice Ministry." The Democrats solicited in exchange, within a resolution adopted by the National Coordination Council, that Government's responsibility should be used for the law on a tighter contractual responsibility, which should secure "a rapid reaction against those who do not observe the contracts they concluded." According to Traian Basescu, the law would hold economic units' not honouring obligations to the state as "an act of economic criminality" and would establish "equal penal responsibilities for managers of the state-owned and private sectors." The draft, which Basescu pledged to present within two weeks, either as a parliamentary initiative, or within the Government, will also include definite terms and penalties for the Finance Ministry's not reimbursing the Value Added Tax. Government responsibility assuming is a procedure the Executive resorts to when it needs the immediate adoption of some laws that are not debated in Parliament. At the same time, this move also tests the support the Government enjoys in Parliament, as a non-confidence vote adopted as a way of opposition by the Legislative against the laws for which the Executive takes on responsibility leads to the fall of the Cabinet. PN?CD will send within the next two weeks the amendments to the package of laws to the Justice Ministry, stated the Peasants' leader Ion Diaconescu, warning that "it is likely that negotiations within the coalition should not bring along agreement on all laws." The decision was made following a meeting between leaders of the two parties, during which the Peasants accepted, according to Diaconescu, the argument of Stoica on the impossibility of amending 14 laws through parliamentary procedures. The Peasants consider that responsibility assuming could be better used for the Law on nationalised real estate in case debates in Senate should be delayed. Valeriu Stoica maintains that "the Government will assume responsibility with or without PD", stating that its initiative is already backed up by UDMR (Democrat Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) and PSDR (Social-Democrat Party). The main opposition party, PDSR (Party of Social Democracy) announced it would introduce a non-confidence vote in case the Government assumes responsibility for the laws on justice reform. PDSR was expected on Monday to issue a decision linked to the proposal of PD on Government's assuming responsibility on the so-called contractual responsibility law.
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