The Constitutional Court of Romania [official website, in Romanian] ruled [press release, in Romanian] unanimously Tuesday that a bill permitting the conversion of Swiss francs to Romanian currency was unconstitutional. The bill which was passed [Daily Mail report] last year was meant to help mortgage holders who were behind on their payments due to the rise in value of the franc. The court held the move was unconstitutional as it violated multiple provisions and differed in it final passage:

The law, in the version adopted by the Chamber of Deputies, departs substantially so the text adopted in the Senate and the objectives of the legislative initiative, by modifications Chamber decision regulating provisions were never in any way made the Senate debate, as a first notified Chamber. These changes are significant, substantive, and of lack of the parties agreement regarding the conversion operations of credit agreements and the conversion exchange rate Swiss Franc / lion as of the date of conclusion of the credit agreement, and not the date of conversion. The Court also found that the law subject to constitutional review governing an unpredictability applicable ope legis, expressly providing duty creditors credit agreements in Swiss francs to be converted in lei of the balance of credit expressed in Swiss francs to “the exchange rate of the Bank Romania’s national true when the contract / agreement credit in Swiss francs

The ruling comes as Romania deals with massive public uprising. The Romanian justice ministry in January published a draft of a plan to lower prison overcrowding that involves pardons for thousands of prisoners [JURIST report], but the plan was met with protests around the country. The government of Romania on Saturday repealed a decree [JURIST report] enacted earlier in the week that had decriminalized corruption offenses and official misconduct in which the damages were less than €44,000. Romania’s Justice Minister Florin Iordache, the man who originally introduced the corruption decree that sparked large protests, announced [JURIST report] on Monday morning that he would soon publish details of an alternative bill to update the criminal code.