Parliament likely to re-discuss State secret law

The law regarding the protection of classified information might be withdrawn from promulgation and re-discussed by the Parliament again, after several political leaders and representatives of the civil society noted that the normative act restrains the freedom of expression and the access to information.

Several representatives of the political class expressed their concern regarding the information protection law, the new state secret law that concluded its legislative course last week.

President Ion Iliescu at the end of last week stated that he would examine the law’s text when he received it and if it required changes, he would send it to the Parliament again.

Ion Iliescu considers that the Romanian authorities do not intend to restrain the citizens’ fundamental right of free access to information by issuing the law on classified information protection. The enforcement of this legislative act, said Iliescu, is compliant with one of the EU and Nato accession requests.

Pursuant to this law, the state secret protection is a legal and civic obligation of all the Romanian citizens, “through which one proves loyalty towards the country’s interests”.

The draft law stipulates that all those having come into the possession of a state secret, “no matter the circumstances in which it might have occurred”, are bound to protect this information.

According to this normative act, publishing a state secret information is sentenced with 3-10 year imprisonment. Premier Adrian Nastase suggested the Presidency to send the law to the Parliament again provided it required changes. “We do not want the press to be harmed,” Nastase told. He added that a law regarding the free access to public interest information should be drafted soon.