The MPs of the Party of Socialists (PSRM) filed an application to the Constitutional Court, asking to establish the constitutionality of including three items as supplements in the agenda of the January 21 extraordinary sitting of Parliament. Among these are the amendments to the law on advocacy, IPN reports.

According to the MPs, the inclusion of additional subjects in the agenda of the extraordinary session of Parliament runs counter to the constitutional norms and the Parliament’s Regulations.

The Socialists consider that by amending the agenda of the extraordinary session, the regulation conditions on which the validity of the extraordinary session depends were violated. They requested to declare unconstitutional Law No. 13 to amend Law No.1260/2002 on advocacy, which was given a final reading on January 21. The other two items added to the agenda are the bill concerning the National Regional and Local Development Fund and the bill to amend a number of normative documents (Law No.1515/1993, Law No.438/2006, etc.), which were both given a first reading.

The amendments to the law on advocacy were passed on January 21 amid protests mounted by lawyers in front of the Parliament Building. This way, paragraph 2 of Article 52 of the law on advocacy was removed. It said that “the lawyer cannot be detained, brought by force, arrested and searched without the preliminary consent of the Council of the Lawyers Union, except for cases when the person is caught red-handed”.