MPs lack capacity to effectively discharge their parliamentary control duties, as they have limited instruments to research and investigate, working only with the information provided by other agencies. The conclusions are contained in a study developed by the NGO Promo-LEX in cooperation with the Parliament’s Secretariat.
The study also shows that only a third of the total motions to set up inquiry commissions are accepted by Parliament, while the rules governing inquiry commissions in general could use more regulation.
Nicolae Panfil, Promo-LEX program director, emphasized that almost half of the inquiry commissions set up recently failed to submit their reports to Parliament for consideration. In particular, as many as 6 commissions ended their probes without presenting reports. The cases where inquiry commissions did submit reports, but which never came to be discussed in a plenary session, can be described as “a waste of administrative resources”. “This can only mean that the activity of those commissions was only for stock-taking purposes, lacking potency and impact”, concluded Nicolae Panfil.
Moreover, the legislative doesn’t have appropriate follow-up instruments to see how the commissions’ recommendations have been put into practice by the relevant agencies and no clear protocols for those agencies to keep Parliament updated. Concrete provisions to this effect should be introduced in the future Code of Parliamentary Procedures, the study recommends.
Further, Clear provisions need to be introduced as to the duties of inquiry commissions, participation protocols, including summoning and hearing witnesses, as well as enforcement aspects. It is also recommended to clarify the matters that may become the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.
Another recommendation is to ensure transparency by clearly regulating the grounds when Parliament can refuse creating an inquiry commission. At the same time, in order to avoid frequent changes in deadlines, it is proposed that a timeframe of 190 days should be allowed for a commission to complete the probe, draft its report and present it to Parliament for examination.
Corneliu Cirimpei, political consultant, noted that the commissions’ chairpersons and secretaries in all cases were majority representatives, with the opposition left out. At the same time, he believes that the Prosecutor’s Office should show more interest in the parliamentary inquiry reports, even if they may contain different opinions.
