The Constitutional Court (CC) approved the bill to amend Article 70 of the Constitution, which was initiated by 63 MPs, as complaint with the constitutional provisions. The article refers to “Incompatibilities and Immunities” and the proposed amendments are aimed at restraining the immunity of MPs if they commit such offenses as active or passive corruption, influence peddling, abuse of power, unjust enrichment and money laundering, IPN reports.

By this bill, Article 70 of the Constitution will be supplemented with “the Parliament’s consent to detain, arrest, search or bring to justice MPs is not necessary in the case of such offenses as active or passive corruption, influence peddling, abuse of power, unjust enrichment and money laundering”.

The argumentation note to the bill says the limitation of the inviolability of MP is necessary for strengthening the society’s confidence in the people’s representatives given the higher level of corruption and for promoting policies to ensure zero tolerance of corruption as an objective of national importance. Society can institute efficient constitutional mechanisms if there are suspicions that the MPs use immunity for other goals than those stipulated in the Constitution.

CC president Domnica Manole said the bill to supplement Article 70 of the Constitution matches the temporal and material limits for the revision of the Constitution that are set by Article 63, paragraph 3, and Article 142 of the Supreme Law and can be submitted to Parliament for consideration. The bill can be adopted in at least six months of the presentation of the amendment proposal.

Currently, the Constitution provides that the MPs cannot be detained, arrested and searched, if only they are caught red-handed, and cannot be brought to justice without the Parliament’s consent.