After the State of Emergency Was Canceled, the Decision to Double the Deadline for Examining Requests for Information Was Also Annulled

The CC declared the act of the Parliament on establishing the state of emergency to be unconstitutional following the examination of the notifications filed by two deputies, Octavian Ticu and Sergiu Litvinenco. The Court noted that the Constitution did not offer the Parliament sufficient powers to independently collect information on eventual threats which could seriously affect the functioning of the state or everyday life of the population, whereas the Government and, in some cases, the Presidency had such competencies. The Court emphasized that declaring a state of emergency was an exclusive prerogative of the Parliament, but the legislative authority “had to base its decision on the data requiring urgent action by the authorities” and to be “of last resort.” Therefore, according to the judgment of the Court, the announced state of emergency was declared unconstitutional and, respectively, the decisions of the CE ceased to produce legal effects.

According to one of them, during the state of emergency, the deadlines established “for examining requests related to free access to information of public interest, as well as petitions” were doubled. The interim Prime Minister Aurel Ciocoi explained that the decision was caused by the insufficient number of staff working daily at the state institution offices.

However, on April 29, the National Extraordinary Public Health Commission adopted a new decision to regulate measures for preventing and controlling the COVID-19 infection, yet the approved provisions do not include any other restrictions on extending the deadline for providing information.

Earlier, the non-governmental media organizations expressed their “serious concern” about the CE’s doubled deadlines for examining requests for access to information of public interest during the state of emergency.