National Agency for Integrity-ANI head says he expects ANI law be challenged at Constitutional Court

Romanian Senate’s passage on Tuesday of a new law regulating the functioning of the National Agency for Integrity (ANI) – a key body supervising the wealth of public officials in Romania – was „a victory of wit over passion”, ANI president Catalin Macovei said on Wednesday. But he said he expected the law to be challenged at the Constitutional Court.

The ANI law had to be revised after a first piece of legislation in this regard was considered unconstitutional earlier this year. The new law was approved by the Parliament after initial versions of it caused a public outcry as they were weakening ANI considerably.

According to Macovei, the new law showed balance between European Commission requests and the conditions set by the Romanian Constitutional Court in prior decisions. „But one can never know whether a provision may be read as constitutional or not”, he said.