The law prohibiting of gambling is attacked at the CCR by ÎCCJ magistrates

The United Sections of the High Court of Cassation and Justice referred the Constitutional Court to rule on the unconstitutionality of the Law for the completion of Law 286/2009 on the Criminal Code, being complained about the way in which the parliamentarians regulated the prohibition of gambling (the law prohibiting "casualties") only in localities with less than 15,000 inhabitants, according to a press release issued by the public institution. The legislative proposal in Parliament initially aimed at amending article 335 of the Criminal Code regarding driving a vehicle without a driver's license, i.e. penalizing those who drive an agricultural or forestry tractor on public roads without a driver's license.

According to the quoted source, the legislative initiative was rejected by the Senate, but later, during the debates in the Chamber of Deputies, two new articles were introduced which define and sanction as crimes "non-compliance with obligations in the field of gambling" and "disturbance of the use of the home" .

Through the two new articles of the law of păcănelels, after article 348 of the Criminal Code, art. 348¹ with the following content:

"(1) Carrying out the activity with slot-machine type game means without a certificate issued by the town hall in whose territorial radius the proposed space is located, which certifies the location of the space in a locality with a population greater than 15,000 inhabitants, constitutes a crime and shall be punished with imprisonment from 3 months to one year or with a fine;

(2) The issuance by the town hall of the certificate attesting the number of inhabitants without respecting the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics resulting from the last population and housing census constitutes a crime and is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years".

By introducing these crimes, by the decision-making forum - the Chamber of Deputies, the principle of bicameralism was violated, the judges of the Supreme Court say. They show in the document submitted to the CCR that the legislative project recently adopted by the Chamber of Deputies has defects of unconstitutionality, both of an extrinsic and intrinsic nature.

We note that the initial form of the banning law passed the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in early April, was promulgated by President Klaus Iohannis on April 17 and came into effect on April 29. Due to the lack of clarity of some texts in the normative act, it could not be applied in practice and that is why a project to amend the law was initiated in May, in which, in addition to clarifying the content of some articles - for example what is meant by administrative-territorial unit in the content of the normative act - in the Chamber of Deputies, two crimes regarding the violation of the rules of this law were also established, crimes that were introduced into the Criminal Code without a debate with the legal professionals and without a debate in the Superior Council of the Magistrate. On May 28, the bill to amend the law on grocery stores was passed by the Chamber of Deputies, as the decision-making body.