EXCLUSIVE: The PNL withdraws the bill restricting the right to set up associations and inhibiting civil society actions / NGOs protested against Liberal Senator Daniel Fenechiu’s initiative

PNL Senator Daniel Fenechiu told G4Media on Monday that he has submitted a request to the Permanent Bureau of the Senate to withdraw a controversial bill that civil society has said, in corpore, restricts the right to establish associations, inhibits the action of civil society and limits the right of non-governmental organizations to bring cases of illegality to justice.

„We had a debate last Tuesday and found that NGOs did not support this bill. When the whole civil community says there is no need for this project, the political decision is clear,” Fenechiu told G4Media.

It should be noted that PSD MPs who co-signed the bill had withdrawn their support at the end of February, under pressure from civil society.

Several NGO representatives protested at the Victory Palace a week ago, demanding the withdrawal of the draft.

As early as November 2022, 160 NGOs demanded the withdrawal of the initiators’ signatures on a bill that would make it more difficult for NGOs to take any possible illegality to court.

The proposed changes are an attempt to weaken civil society’s ability to exercise its mission to protect the public interest and are in line with illiberal trends in other European countries.

They argue that the proposed legislation would prevent or significantly hamper the process by which any non-governmental organisation can bring any possible illegality of acts issued by public institutions before the courts.

Among the new elements that the initiators of this law want to introduce are a minimum of two years’ seniority of the non-governmental organization wishing to apply to the court for the annulment of administrative acts, the deposit of 1% of the value of the investment (for challenging investment projects), and the patrimonial liability of the members of the board of directors, in case the court issues a final decision dismissing the case. All these proposals come against the background that the Code of Civil Procedure already regulates abuse of process in a comprehensive way.

„The legislative proposal leads to the curtailment of fundamental rights and, in essence, goes against the functioning principles of a democratic state. The fact that non-governmental organizations can appeal to the courts to prevent possible violations of the law by public authorities is part of the healthy dynamic of a society where checks on power are working. However, the legislative proposal we are referring to here seeks precisely to further unbalance the power relationship between public institutions and the civic space, which is unthinkable in a democratic state,” the organisations say.

The initiators of the project, led by Daniel Fenechiu, said they wanted to limit the „abuse of rights” by organizations that challenge infrastructure projects in court. According to the draft law, „in order to partially guarantee the compensation of the damage caused to the beneficiaries of the administrative act under attack, when the association is a third party to the administrative act under attack, it has the obligation to deposit a bond amounting to 1% of the value of the investment, but not more than 50,000 lei”.

Amendments requiring associations and foundations to draw up new bureaucratic documents were introduced by PNL Senator Daniel Fenechiu. He also tabled the amendment providing for the automatic dissolution of NGOs that do not keep lists of donors and do not make them public.

The PSD and PNL have backed legislative changes that would require all NGOs in Romania to make lists of all people who have redirected 3.5% of their income tax and make them public. The draft also provides for the automatic dissolution of NGOs that do not make these lists public. In addition, the bill inhibits civil society legal action and prohibits those who have had an association that became insolvent from setting up NGOs.

Translated