Romania: Debate on Human Trafficking and Family Values

It is to be mentioned that this Conference took place in the context of a pending debate on the definition of marriage and family in the Romanian society. In 2013, a process of Constitutional reform was opened in Romania. This process was initiated after the delivery of the Opinion of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe on the 14th of December 2012, regarding the actions taken by the Government and the Parliament of Romania in respect of other state institutions in June 2012. With this occasion and encouraged by the Croatian citizens’ initiative, 51 Romanian NGOs - “The Coalition for Family and Constitution”- made a proposal of enshrining in the Romanian Constitution the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

In parallel, in July 2013, just before summer holidays and without the support of their political group, eight parliamentarians introduced to the Romania Senate a law proposal on civil partnership, inspiring themselves from the French law on civil partnership. In October 2013, the Romanian Government delivered its negative opinion on the law proposal, indicating that the political view was already expressed on this subject by the newly adopted Civil Code, choosing to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman and recognizing only the family based on marriage. In December 2013, the plenary of the Senate rejected the proposal and the text was sent to the Chamber of deputies. In March 2014, the relevant commissions of the Chamber of deputies gave a negative opinion on the law proposal.

At present, both the Constitutional reform process and the law proposal on civil partnership are pending debate in the Parliament. In February 2014, the draft law on the Constitutional reform was sent back to Parliament after the Constitutional Court of Romania found that 26 articles were unconstitutional. The draft law on the civil partnership was inscribed on the agenda of the plenary of Chamber of deputies of the 6-7th of May 2014 with a rejection proposal.  
The ECLJ, together with the 51 Romanian NGOs, was involved in the above mentioned decision making processes in Romania. Since July 2013, ECLJ followed closely the debates, supporting on one hand the adoption of the proposal of enshrining in the Romanian Constitution the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman and on the other hand the rejection of the legalization of the civil partnership. To these purposes ECLJ provided the Romanian parliamentarians with a legal Memorandum on the right to man and a woman to marry and found a family.  

In this context, the European Christian Politcal Movement (ECPM), the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) and two groups of the Romanian Parliament (The Group for combatting human trafficking and the Ecumenical Prayer Group) organized an International conference on human trafficking and family values in the Romanian Parliament (in Bucharest), 2nd April 2014.

Diplomats, parliamentarians, representatives of Romanian administration institutions, representatives of cults, national and international NGOs participated in this conference.

It was underlined the importance of the work and of the role of national parliaments in combating human trafficking and in promoting and defending marriage and family values.

On the second part of the Conference, dedicated to marriage and family values, Antoine Renard (President of FAFCE, Brussels) recalled the role of family as the basis of any society.

Andreea Popescu (Lawyer at ECLJ and former lawyer at the ECHR) drew the attention on the importance of the defense of family and marriage at national level. Presenting two pending cases before the ECHR against Italy, she showed how the LGBT lobby uses the ECHR in order to legalize same-sex marriage in Italy.

Examples of national good practices were presented by Zjelka Markic, responsible of “In the name of the Family” Croatia and Ludovine de la Rochère, responsible of “La Manif pour tous” France. Zjelka shared on the Croatian successful citizens’ initiative campaign for a referendum to enshrine in the Constitution the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. Ludovine spoke about the huge and unexpected citizens’ manifestations in France opposing the Government’s law proposal on same-sex marriage and adoption and other similar “social engineering” law proposals that the Government drafted since the adoption of “marriage for all” law proposal. 

Sharing his vast experience and work as a member of PACE of the Council of Europe, Luca Volonté (President of “Novae Terrae Foundation”) encouraged Romanian parliamentarians and NGOs to engage in pro-life policies, giving concrete examples of such policies that can be proposed and adopted by the Parliament.