Sever Voinescu: A pigsty and a trickery

The case of Dominic Fritz is clear. As mayor, he drafted and signed a report approving a PUZ (Zonal Urban Plan) whose initiator and beneficiary was an architect who is a member of USR, who also lent him money during the electoral campaign. By law, this is a typical case of administrative conflict of interest. As someone who does not sympathize with the leadership of ÎCCJ, I tell you that in the Fritz case, the courts (both first instance and appeal) judged correctly and legally. I tell this to the fanatical supporters of the mayor of Timișoara: imagine if a Băluță or Firea signed a report approving a PUZ initiated by an architect who is a member of PSD and who also contributed to his/her campaign. Would you shout to denounce corruption? I tell you, you would. So, let's be clear, Dominic Fritz messed up. It is not a criminal act at all, it is not even a case of incompatibility – it is an administrative conflict of interest and the mayor was sanctioned according to the law.

The first correct question to ask in this context is whether the law that provides for such a conflict of interest is a good law or not. And, furthermore, whether our integrity legislation is, in some places, exaggerated to the point of absurdity. I know, I know – you will immediately object that corruption, nepotism, favoritism, connections, godfathers, and sinecures are endemic in our country, that we need tough legislation to stop these misfortunes, etc. I will agree with you, only that extreme and absurd legislation not only does not solve anything, but also criminalizes what should not be criminalized, namely normality.

In this case, I believe that if that PUZ was legal and beneficial for the community, it should not matter who submitted it. But the legality and utility of the PUZ were not even discussed, only, strictly formally, the mayor's signature. The law is the law! Good or bad – according to it, the courts must rule. Let me give another example: there is in the Penal Code (neither more nor less!) a text that says that a public official goes to prison if "through his/her act" he/she brings a material advantage to someone with whom he/she has been in a work or commercial relationship in the last five years. If you do not see the absurdity, let me be clearer. If tomorrow I become the Minister of Culture, I cannot bring into the ministry, not even as a personal advisor, any of my colleagues with whom I have worked at Dilema for ten years. I know them best professionally, I know clearly who I can rely on not from CVs and words, but from the experience of working together. Don't you think it's normal to bring alongside you, in a big responsibility, someone you know directly, having worked with him/her? No, says the Penal Code, it is not normal! In fact, it is a crime and you go to prison if you do it. According to the logic of our integrity legislation, the most correct hiring is of someone you have never worked with, someone you have never heard of. This is how you prove you are correct – by leaving aside those whose competence you can swear by, because you have seen it with your own eyes.

The phenomenon is known and, of course, it is a sign of immaturity: when you have a big problem, you legislate to the point of absurdity in the opposite sense. Do you have a problem with integrity? Then you make some rules that prevent you from doing what is natural to do.

But, in the end, the time has come for a new basic law to ensure the integrity of public function. Milestone 431 from PNRR with a lot of money: 770 million euros. Now, to be honest, this Union is a bit strange. To give you three-quarters of a billion euros to make a new ANI law is a bit bizarre. Of course, the wording of "milestone" is generous. It says: "evaluation and updating of the legislation regarding integrity." We know nothing about an evaluation of the current legislation (so not only of the ANI Law, but of all integrity norms!). It might be a secret. Or, rather, it might not be at all. In our typical hurry, we quickly draft a new law because, as they say, we can draft bills in two days if requested and if it involves money, then we pass it through Parliament at lightning speed under the noble cause of not letting the little country lose EU funds, and that's it – checked, let the money in!

And so we have reached the parliamentary episode of these days. The episode has a visible face and an invisible face: a PSD mess on the surface and a USR trick hidden away. Thus, the pesedeii introduce an absurd amendment that directly targets Dominic Fritz, the head of the opponents. They want to remove him from the mayor's office and not even let him run for office again. To make it happen, they introduce an obviously retroactive norm into the law, thus unconstitutional. The explanation of the PSD lawyers that the norm is "civil," not criminal, and therefore the issue of the more favorable law does not arise is nonsense. Civil sanctions exist only in the case of private law relationships, of legal relationships of a completely different nature. When, for example, civil law disqualifies you from a right, it is not about losing a public law status, such as that of mayor, but about losing a right strictly in relation to the other subject of the civil law relationship. For example, disqualification from the right to invoke defects in a purchased item does not mean that you lose your status as a buyer, but rather your right to demand certain repairs from the seller. Similarly, disqualification from the right to receive an inheritance does not mean that you lose your status as an heir and, in any case, the effects of this disqualification exist only in relation to the other heirs and not in relation to all the citizens of the city. This is how civil sanctions are. Not everything that is not criminal is civil. There is also administrative law, for example. However, administrative law sanctions follow the rules of retroactivity/non-retroactivity from criminal law. This is the practice of the CCR, ÎCCJ, and CEDO on this issue! But let's leave aside the practice: it is the Constitution. Art. 15, para. 2. As I said, the PSD mess is visible and I have no doubt that it will fall at the Constitutional Court.

As for the USR trick, it is as follows. The act for which Fritz was sanctioned disappears from the current draft law made and supported (also) by USR. Thus, Dominic Fritz will be cleared of this small act because the decriminalization of a criminal or contraventional act leads to the cessation of the execution of the sanction and the impossibility of considering it, at a later time, as a precedent. And if the cessation of a new candidacy after his mayoral term expires is a sanction applied, well, it will no longer be, because the act is decriminalized. So their Fritz will be able to run. Moreover, malicious tongues say that the usereii made sure to remove from the existing law all the texts that made their dignitaries feel like they had a fly on their hat, some of whom are visible ministers today, since the drone incident. But we are not here to talk about gossip, but about facts, and the decriminalization of Dominic Fritz's act is certain. A trick, as I said.

https://www.dilema.ro/tilc-show/o-porcarie-si-o-smecherie