The draft law amending the Criminal Code in order to allow civil servants to hire relatives up to 2nd degree of kinship without facing sanctions for conflict of interests has been silently adopted by the Senate. The bill had initially received a negative opinion from both the Ministry of Justice and the Legal Committee of the Senate, but will be debated on by the Chamber of Deputies which has the final decision.

The draft law was tacitly adopted on 25 March, in spite of the negative opinion of the two institutions.

The bill was sponsored by MPs Aurelian Ionescu, Ion Marocico, Marton Arpad-Francisc, Ciprian Nica and Victor Roman.

The legislative proposal pops up in a context where several senators and deputies have been fined or handed down suspended sentences for having hired wives, sons and daughters.

The wish of the senators to protect their interests to the detriment of the law is manifested in the context where, in February, ANI inspectors informed the Standing Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies that they had been notified about the fact that 40 deputies had been in a conflict of interests from 2008 to 2012 by hiring members of their families at the Chamber of Deputies.