Quorum rush, Romanian Parliament's fundamental law

When the current legislature first took over, regulations of the two parliamentary chambers were modified at PDSR’s (Party of Social Democracy) request in order to make the legislative process more efficient.

Half a year later, many of the important laws, especially those about rallying to the EU legislation are still waiting their turn on the agenda.

The reason is simple. The MPs, despite all the threats about being struck off the slates at the next elections, or about not being paid for the sessions they missed, do not seem to feel like working that much.

The sessions start in the afternoon on Monday and end by noontime on Thursdays. And in those days when plenum is required, the colleagues vote for the absentees.

Should someone get the idea of checking the session quorum, that is the minimal number of MPs who actually have to be there, they may often find there is no such thing.

Under the circumstances, a break is called and they resort to an office by office search just to find somebody to help restore the quorum.

This is what happened at the Senate on Thursday, when people worked for an hour and made a roll call for two.

In the upper Parliament chamber, the vote is most often an electronic one. Although there were some 50 senators in the session room by 11, the electronic board was constantly registering 90-100 votes per each law draft.

At some point the PNL (National Liberal Party) group leader, Radu F. Alexandru, one of the few senators attending the sessions on a regular basis, called for a quorum check, as a major law was supposed to be debated.

That is when it all started. Bored senators previously wandering about the building started showing up just to give an appearance of legality to the session, in progress at the time. It took a lot of trouble to gather the working quorum, that is 71 senators.

The debates were resumed, but many MPs left the room. The electronic board was still triumphantly registering 90-100 votes. Those attending the session were requested to no longer use the absentees’ cards to vote.

The opposition MPs, who were keeping a watchful eye on their PDSR colleagues’ electronic manoeuvres, enabling them to effortlessly pass their laws, managed to somehow restrain them. That was the decisive moment. There were not enough senators in the room so that the laws could be voted.

A roll call again. A new search through the Senate building. The new comers would remain in the room just enough to hear their names called and then leave again. After four roll calls that took two hours, the quorum could not be ensured and the session was adjourned.