Financiarul

The Parliament’s special joint commission that will draft the legal proposal on the constitution modification will be made up of 21 deputies and senators, a Government member, a representative for the Romanian President and the Ombudsman, according to a draft resolution issued by the legislature on Dec. 2, 2009.

The commission meetings require the attendance of at least two thirds of the voting-right members that make it up.
The commission shall draft a legal proposal on the revision of the constitution, which it will hand in the Joint Bureaus of the two chambers of Parliament.
The Joint Bureaus, in turn, have the obligation to make the legal proposal available to the parties and parliamentary groups in order for them to initiate the procedure proper for the constitution revision in line with the fundamental law’s Article 150, para 1.

The legal proposal should get the Legislative Council’s assent and an acceptance of constitutionality from the Romanian Constitutional Court before being put forward to the debate of a joint sitting of Parliament.
The commission that worked out the legal proposal for the constitution revision will also draw up the draft law on the organisation and conduct of a referendum on the revision law adopted by Parliament.

The draft resolution drawn up by the two chambers of Parliament on Dec. 2 represents the answer to a request put forward by the parliamentary groups of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L) in the Senate and the Deputies’ Chamber on Nov. 30, 2009.
The PD-L National Standing Bureau meeting on this Jan. 18 mandated the leaders of the party’s two parliamentary groups to continue the moves aimed at setting up the constitutional commission that should enforce the results of the Nov. 22, 2009 referendum on switching to one-house legislature and slashing the number of MPs.