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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's president is urging the country's top court to strike down a series of revised criminal justice statutes which he says are unconstitutional.
Klaus Iohannis wrote to the Constitutional Court Tuesday outlining 33 objections to a series of amendments to existing criminal law which Parliament approved last month.
One of the measures adopted prohibits courts from overturning a lower court's acquittal of a criminal defendant unless new evidence surfaces. The president said this "violated the independence of judges."
Another amendment says information about criminal cases will no longer be made public without "legal public interest," which Iohannis criticized as "unclear and unpredictable."
Prosecutors also will need to bring charges against someone under investigation within a year for the case to go to trial. Iohannis said the timeframe could obstruct prosecutors from probing serious crimes.
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