The Romanian government is beyond parody.
They actually added to their constitution that EU laws supersede their own.
A few years ago, they had several days of non-stop protest, when politicians wanted the power to pardon other politicians for corruption.
By far the most corrupt government in the western world from what I can tell.
They actually voted to impeach their prime minister, and the Angela Merkel intervened, and overrode the will of the people.
Crazy shit.
💀
@SystemSock @furgar
You have so much of that wrong, it's not even funny.
@SystemSock @furgar
Well...
1) while it's true that our laws technically come after EU laws, that's true for any EU country. That's how the thing works, not a Romanian thing. (which is partly why UK wanted to Brexit, remember?)
2) Politicians at that time didn't want to pardon other politicians for corruption. This is a lie that was spread by the opposition at the time (opposition which is currently in power). Thing is what Americans call lobbying, here is called corruption, and you can go in jail for it. Problem is, there is no limit to how little you can steal from the state before you get jail time. You can literally defraud the state for an egg and be punished with years of imprisonment. At the time, our Constitutional Court recommended the legislators try to institute such a limit in law, as in, you only get jail time if you exceed a certain sum. Because of the protests of course, the law never passed.
There was also a separate issue, that sparked the protests in the picture, where, because the prisons are overcrowded, the government wanted to pardon prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes. The opposition came in with lies that the government would release thiefs, rapists, pedophiles and so on. But if anyone would have actually read the law, it was very clear that very few categories of crime would have actually been pardoned. Any type of crime that had anything to do with violence or sex would not be affected by the pardon. Once again, because of the protests, the law didn't pass, and our jails are so overcrowded, that we regularly pay fines to EU and the state gets sued regularly by ex-convicts and loses.
3) Nobody ever voted to impeach a prime minister. We voted to impeach the president. Also, not sure if Angela Merkel herself got involved, but at least here you got it partially correct, in that there was some European involvement, from José Manuel Barroso (that was President of European Council at the time), and involvement from USA ambassador at the time. Once again these interventions came because of lies of "3 million stolen votes" (that would be like a third of total votes cast) spread by the opposition of that time (once again, the same guys that are today in power).
Yes, there are indeed some crazy shit going in my country. Unfortunately, you've received and believed the propaganda side.
@SystemSock @furgar
Sure, thing is the definition of "corruption" has spread way too much lately (in my country I mean), and you can run foul of the law with the most minor things, that no one in their right mind would try to imprison someone for.
We had a case where an old grandma was harassed and prosecuted because she gave a chicken to her local village mayor. It was considered "trafficking influence", aka corruption, and she was taken to the capital, to be questioned by prosecutes, and when she was finally let to go home, she didn't even have enough money to take a train back home, hundreds of kilometres away.
@SystemSock @furgar
In our villages, things don't work like in your cities. All residents in a village are friendly to some degree, indifferent of social status. People help each other all the time, and if someone gives you a gift as a thanks, refusing is beyond impolite. You'll have neighbors exchanging stuff, like baked good or whatever all the time. This is the social norm there, and the law needs to account for things like this. Otherwise, you might as well convict someone for giving the mayor a pen when he needs one.
Laws are ultimately codified morality.
But on the other, that sort of attitude can be imported to cities, as politicians get better connections and rise through their party's ranks.
Bringing this sort of culture to the heights of power is clearly a bad move.
Running a state is not like running a village.
Maybe the mayor's position should be seen as being akin to a monk.
Taking an vow of poverty, or something similar.
Something that is both culturally acceptable to the vulture of small towns and villages, but also works in the larger scale.
I don't know, it's a difficult problem.
In my country as well.
To be fair though, lobbying IS a form of corruption.
As for prison time for defrauding of the state, I'm totally in favor of that.
I consider it minor treason to steal the tax-payer's money.