Romania

[RO] New Criminal Code

IRIS 2003-2:1/28

Mariana Stoican

Journalist, Bucharest

The fourth Codul Penal (Romanian Criminal Code), currently in draft form, will be the subject of a public debate in the next few weeks.

The draft has been criticised because, amongst other things, it puts slander, an offence usually committed by the media, on an equal footing with libel, even though libel is a more serious crime. The Romanian Minister of Justice explained that the Justice Ministry was not trying to restrict media freedoms or to punish journalists more severely by amending the Criminal Code in this way. Therefore, as an amendment to the current draft, fines for libel will be fixed in proportion to the perpetrator's income, for example. In order to clear up possible confusion, there are also plans to review provisions regarding the punishment of publishers, the legal entities on whose behalf journalists carry out their work.