Romanian Senate rejects the new data retention law

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Deutsch: [Rumänien: Senat lehnt neues Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung ab | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.1_Rumaenien_Senat_lehnt_neues_Gesetz_zur_Vorratsdatenspeicherung_ab?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20120127]

Following the pressure of the European Commission to the Romanian
authorities to implement the data retention directive and despite the
decision of the Constitutional Court from 2009 against the data retention
law, a new draft law has emerged, but it was rejected by the Senate at the
end of 2011.

The Romanian Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) has
tried to have the new draft promoted as a Government proposal, but has
failed to do so for unclear reasons. The Romanian Data Protection Authority
has decided not to endorse the new draft law, as the article related to the
security institutions to the retain data is still vague.

The text is in fact similar to the old law that was declared
unconstitutional and even worse in some specific cases, such as for example
the judicial approval to have access to the retained data that is unclear in
the new proposal. However, the MCSI rejected claims of the civil society
that the new law was still unconstitutional and decided to go further with
the same draft.

In the end, the Minister promoted the law as his own initiative in the
Chamber of Deputies (because he is also a deputy) together with a Party
colleague. The law was sent for debates to the Senate, where it received a
unusual point of view from the Government that refused to endorse the law
and said that the Parliament should decide its fate, because of the conflict
between the Constitutional Court decision and the EU data retention
directive.

The law was quickly debated by the Senate, after the Legal and Human Rights
Committees decided to suggest the rejection the law, as the content is
similar to the one already declared unconstitutional. On 21 December 2011,
the Senate decided unanimously that the law should be rejected.

However, the vote in the Senate is only consultative for this law and the
decisive vote will be taken by the Chamber of Deputies, that will start
discussing the law in its Commissions starting with February 2012.

Data retention: Commission requests Germany and Romania fully transpose EU
rules (27.10.2011)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1248&type=HTML

Romanian DPA does not endorse the data retention law (only in Romanian,
29.08.2011)
http://dataprotection.ro/?page=stire_07092011&lang=ro

The Romanian Government refuses to adopt a point of view on data retention
law (only in Romanian, 19.12.2011)
http://apti.ro/retinerea-datelor-Guvernul-refuza-sa-isi-asume-un-punct-de-vedere

Report of the Senate Legal Committee to reject the data retention law (only
in Romanian, 20.12.2011)
http://www.apti.ro/sites/default/files/Raport%20respingere%20Senat%2020%20dec%202011.pdf.

The Senate rejects the data retention law (only in Romanian, 22.12.2011)
http://legi-internet.ro/blogs/index.php/2011/12/22/legea-pastrarii-datelor-de-trafic-a-fost-respinsa-de-senat

EDRi-gram: New draft law for data retention in Romania (29.06.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.13/new-draft-data-retention-romania