The NGOs could be forced to submit a cash guarantee when they challenge real estate or infrastructure projects in court, according to the provisions of a project submitted to the Senate and supported by PSD and PNL. The guarantee would be 1% of the investment value, without exceeding 50,000 lei.
The draft law imposing restrictions on non-governmental organizations was initiated by PNL senators Daniel Fenechiu and Cristian Niculescu-Tagarlas. The initiators of the legislative project claim that they want to limit the number of actions brought to court in bad faith and which lead to the blocking of some investments.
In fact, the law also proposes that NGOs no longer have the right to sue a project started before the establishment of the organization, nor if the organization has been operating for less than 2 years, according to presshub.ro.
If the NGO loses the case, those in the board of directors answer with their assets, without any limit, and if an association is dissolved, the initiators do not have the right to form another for 5 years.
Georgiana Iorgulescu, executive director of the Center for Legal Resources, explains to RFI what is the purpose of such a legislative initiative:
„The purpose is to block the civic activity, to defend the public interest of non-governmental organizations, which deals with environmental law, litigation in this area. I think it is more to protect real estate developers and to shut down, I mean literally, non-governmental organizations that dare to conduct such litigation. In fact, I think we also have two colleagues, already, who are in judicial liquidation because they cannot afford to pay the fees of the opposing party, i.e. real estate developers, when they lose a litigation. So, let’s go back somewhere in the 90s, where everyone can do what they want”.
Georgiana Iorgulescu also says that it is “an extremely dangerous precedent (the adoption of this legislative initiative) for the associative environment, it is extremely dangerous, it is like opening a pandora’s box in which <<we tell you what you have to do, if you still want to do, you will pay>> and the members of the board of directors will also pay, who must approve a certain litigation for you and once they have approved it, they are personally responsible for the property. It’s a kind of end of the associative environment, and those of us in the associative environment, as many of us as are left, must do everything possible to prevent this from happening”.
The entire article is available here, source: RFI, author: Maria Ilie.
