Challenges of the Knowledge Society (Jul 2015)
POLITICAL MIGRATION, THE ROMANIAN POLITICIANS’ "DISEASE". COMMENTS ON CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECISION NO. 761/2015
Abstract
After 1989, the Romanian society has been in a continuous constitutional, legislative, and political effervescence. Building a democratic state, a state of the rule of law, based on fundamental values, such as human dignity, freedom, fundamental rights and freedoms, political pluralism, is a long process. Democratic, fair, free and regular elections are a crucial element for the proper functioning of the political institutions. But are they sufficient to ensure a functional and representative democracy? Our answer is no. There are many other elements that are needed in order to achieve such an important goal to a functioning society. One of these elements which we would like mention is, in our opinion, important to progress and representative democracy of any state: the legitimacy and political stability of the bodies exercising power at all levels. In our study, we address a number of issues concerning a phenomenon that grinds the foundation of the representative democracy, namely political migration. In our opinion, this phenomenon, that has invaded the political life in Romania, is one of the serious "diseases" of both the political class, and the Romanian society. Obtaining power at any price seems to justify any political treason, metaphorically called “political migration”. In our study, the phenomenon of the political migration will be analyzed mostly under Constitutional Court Decision no. 761 of 17 December 2014 concerning the unconstitutionality of the Law on the approval of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 55/2014 regulating measures concerning the local public administration. By Ordinance no. 55/2014, Pandora's Box has been opened once again within the local public administration as, for a period of 45 days, the local elected were provided the permission to express in writing, only once, their option of either becoming members of a certain political party or national minority organization, or becoming independent without losing their mandate. In our opinion, the above-mentioned ordinance has done nothing else but regulate a situation that actually exists among all the elected representatives of the local public administration in Romania. Regardless of the reasons that the Government or the Parliament gave, the enactment of the political migration is doing nothing else but infecting politicians with an incurable virus which will only lead to a malformed democracy. In our opinion, the lawmakers should regulate the ways in which the elected officials, who ignored the citizens’ choice of voting, can be penalized (one of the penalties would be, in our opinion, the loss of their mandate). Although we analyze the effects of an action of the elected officials – party-switching – however, we should find out which are the elements leading to an action which is abnormal in a society where the will of the people must be sovereign.
