Less than a month before the start of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Committee of Ministers (CM) of the Council of Europe (CoE) expressed its deep concern on Thursday 6 December about the ongoing legislative reforms in Romania.
Representatives of the 47 CoE member states therefore call on Romania to "reconsider recent amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, in particular those reducing the limitation period for torture" taking into account the European Convention on Human Rights and the opinions of the Venice Commission (see EUROPE 1122).
This very firm notification from the Council of Ministers was published at the end of its last ordinary meeting on the application of the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights.
Al Nashiri' case. The meeting also examined the implementation of the ruling last May that condemned Romania in the case of Al Nashiri, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni origin detained and tortured in 2004-2005 in a "secret CIA prison" before being transferred to the United States where he faces the death penalty for involvement in terrorist acts.
In its decision, the CM also refers to the Venice Commission's opinion on the amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure published last October. These judicial reforms could seriously affect Romania's ability to fight corruption and organised crime, said CoE constitutional law experts, to which the European Commission also refers in its decisions.
In conclusion, the CM "invites the Romanian authorities" to "rapidly" inform it of “the steps taken to obtain the required diplomatic assurances from the United States authorities [in the Al Nashiri case threatened with a death sentence, editor's note] and to address the Committee's concerns related to the effectiveness of criminal investigations".
The subject will again be on the agenda of the March 2019 CM meeting. (original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)