Ombudsman Mihail Cotorobai expressed his concern about the way in which important bills were adopted in Parliament on December 3. He noted that the bills with a crucial impact on people’s rights and freedoms were voted on by ignoring the internal procedures, the principles of transparency and good governance and by preventing the opposition from becoming involved in the legislative procedure, IPN reports.
The ombudsman noted that under the Constitution, the Parliament is the supreme representative body of the people and the only legislative authority of the state. Given this constitutional provision, it is unacceptable to neglect the democratic norms and principles in lawmaking and adoption of laws of a broad public interest, hampering the opposition’s participation in the taking of decisions of decisive importance for the citizens.
Mihail Cotorobai said the Council of Europe member states undertook to make effort to work out common standards and practices on the promotion of free and pluralistic parliamentary democracy and mechanisms for implementing them in the national parliaments. Also, the Venice Commission set down rules concerning the cooperation of the parliamentary majority with the opposition parties in the legislature, which envisions the consolidation of a framework of parameters and guarantees for the interaction between the majority and the opposition.
“In the absence of such guarantees for the opposition, the constitutional democracy can turn into an authoritarian regime. To avoid such degeneration, besides the rules of the Constitution and the legislation, there should be obeyed the principles of pluralism, cooperation and efficient decision-making process that are essential for constitutional democracy,” he stated.
