The legality of the parliament's rejection of the autonomy statute is questionable

      The standing committee of the Szekler National Council has met on Friday, September the 28th in Székelyudvarhely. Among other issues, the repeated rejection of Szeklerland's autonomy statute by the romanian senate was discussed. The committee decided to elaborate a detailed analysis on the reasons of rejection, and the further steps made necessary by it.
       The draft law developed by the Szekler National Council was presented to the Romanian Parliament by MP Becsek Garda Dezső and Senator Sógor Csaba. Based on the reports of the Legislative Council of the Parliament and the competent commissions, the draft was rejected by the House of Representatives on the 12th of December, 2005, and on the 25th of September, 2012 by the Senate. According to the informations accessible on the official website of the Senate, UDMR Senators Fekete-Szabó András Levente, Günthner Tiberiu, Albert Álmos and Cseke Zoltán, and PSD senator Marcu Gheorghe supported the draft, while PSD Senator Gheorghe Pop and PNL senator Luca Raymond abstained.
      From all the reports, only that of the Legislative Council and the joint report of the Administrative and the Legal Affairs Committee are the ones that contain any substantial justification, the others simply communicate the recommendation for rejection.
       The Legislative Council believes that the goal described in the first article of the draft is the creation of an independent state entity, separate from the unitary, national state of Romania. The true goal however is to create an autonomous region endowed with additional competencies, within the Romanian state, and in accordance with it's laws. The deliberate and malicious distortions are so biased that the writers doesn’t even notice that the quoted and criticized sections can be found in the European Charter of Regional Self-government, which states: Regional self-government denotes the right and the ability of the largest territorial authorities within each State, having elected bodies, being administratively placed between central government and local authorities and enjoying prerogatives either of self-organization or of a type normally associated with the central authority, to manage, on their own responsibility and in the interests of their populations, a substantial share of public affairs, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
       After all this it is outright cynical, that the Legislative Council refers to international law, quoting irrelevant generalities from Recommendation 1334/2003 of the Council of Europe, while conceals the most important detail, that this document recommends regional autonomy as the democratic solution to resolve tensions between the central government and the national communities.
      In a similar manner, they reference Recommendation 1201/1993 of the Council of Europe, while being willfully ignorant to its 11'th article, which states clearly:
       In the regions where they are in a majority, the persons belonging to a national minority shall have the right to have at their disposal appropriate local or autonomous authorities, or to have a special status, matching the specific historical and territorial situation and in accordance with the domestic legislation of the state.
     Even more serious is what the Legislative Council has done to article 12 of this Recommendation. According to article 12, nothing in this protocol may be construed as limiting or restricting an individual right of persons belonging to a national minority or a collective right of a national minority embodied in the legislation of the contracting state or in an international agreement to which that state is a party.
       This disposition has been outright falsified, being translated in a way that claims, that nothing in the protocol may be construed as a collective right of a national minority, exactly the opposite of what the original disposition states. 1
        Beyond the fact that not a single document of international law for the protection of minorities should be used against minorities, this act constitutes a document forgery, and puts into question the legitimacy of the legislative process.
      It’s important to point out, that Romania made a unilateral commitment to fulfill recommendation 1201/1993, and to this very day, failed to do so. More than that, the authorities falsify these recommendations, in order to use them against their original purpose and spirit during legislative processes.
        The Legislative Council's 15 page long rejection notice is almost identical to the response written when the draft was submitted on the 12th of March 2004. The claims of that response were disproved one by one by Dr. Csapó József. This rebuttal was sent to the Legislative Council, and was also published. In spite of this, the false arguments and incorrect claims are repeated in this new text, as if this never even happened.
        The Standing Committee also decided that the next meeting of the Szekler National Council will be held in this year's November, in Marosvásárhely.
Izsák Balázs
President of the Szekler National Council
Marosvásárhely, October 1, 2012.

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1
The text falsified by the Legislative Council of the Romanian Parliament:  “…nici o dispoziţiei a Protocolului nu poate fi interpretată ca limitând sau restrângând un drept individual al unei persoane aparţinând unei  minorităţi naţionale sau ca un drept colectiv al unei minorităţi naţionale.”
The English translation of the falsified text: Nothing in this protocol may be construed as limiting or restricting an individual right of persons belonging to a national minority or as a collective right of a national minority.
The official Romanian version of the same text: "Nici una din dispoziţiile acestui protocol nu poate fi interpretată ca o limitare sau restrângere a unui drept individual al persoanelor aparţinând unei minorităţi naţionale, sau a unui drept colectiv al unei minorităţi naţionale cuprins în legislaţia statului contractant sau într-un acord internaţional la care acest stat este parte".
The original English version: Nothing in this protocol may be construed as limiting or restricting an individual right of persons belonging to a national minority or a collective right of a national minority embodied in the legislation of the contracting state or in an international agreement to which that state is a party.

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