Abuses & Corruption Committee, New Team, New Regulations

Cristina Mihalaşcu

Gabriel Berca, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Abuses, Corruption and Petitions, announced a new team and new regulations governing the Committee during a public debate held yesterday. According to him, the changes will give substance to the activities of the Committee, which has so far acted only as a relay for citizen complaints to the relevant institutions. According to Corneliu Grosu, the new Vice Chairman, the Committee will work for another three weeks based on the old set of regulations and submit the new regulations to the Standing Bureau for approval within a month.

"We will be actively involved in countering abuses and include the possibility of self-notification in the new regulations. This means we will not wait to receive notifications about infringements on various rights, but take initiative to solve such problems," said the Vice Chairman of the Committee on Abuses, Corruption and Petitions.

Senator Corneliu Grosu also told BURSA that some of the operational procedures of the Committee were going to change, especially in relation to the travels of Committee members across the country. He believes that the former Committee"s fear to become involved and preference to be a simple observer to various cases was "unjustified."

"If we manage to solve five major problems in a category every month, in four years we will be able to restore the people"s confidence in this Committee," the senator added. He further said that, for the previous few months since he had taken over the office of Vice Chairman of the Committee, most notifications sent to the Committee concerned infringements on the right to property and the fundamental rights to a decent pension or a job. People have also expressed grievances related to the public authorities" lack of action and the poor performance of the local councils.