Romania’s Parliament has overturned contentious parole law which saw thousands of detainees freed before completing their sentences for reasons such as there was damp on their cell walls.
Of the 21,000 who were granted early release since the law was changed in 2017, about 500 were rearrested for violent crimes and sent back to prison, causing public outrage.
Lawmakers voted 272 to repeal the law on Wednesday, while five members of the Chamber of Deputies abstained. Opposition Social Democrat lawmakers who had previously backed the 2017 law, voted to change it, citing its “harmful” effects.
Raluca Turcan, the deputy prime minister of the minority Liberal government, asked colleagues to vote so that “the aberrant law…is definitively stopped because it is producing victims on a daily basis.”
An earlier move to overturn the law in February failed due to opposition from the then-ruling Social Democrats who were ousted in a parliamentary vote in October.
The Liberals who took office last month resubmitted a motion to overturn the law saying “Crime which includes corruption, and big and small crimes, is unfortunately out of control.”
“People are concerned about violent crimes. As can be seen, the level of repeat offending has has reached alarming levels in Romania,” the initiative read.
Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu said Tuesday that “the most perverse effect of this law is that it opened the prison gates for people who were incarcerated in decent conditions, because the law said that if the conditions in just one cell are sub-standard, all prison detainees benefit from this law.”
In 2017, the Social Democrat-led government initiated the change as part of a series of reforms to the judicial system which critics saw as a new lenient approach to crime and corruption.
The move led to the largest protests since the collapse of communism and a rebuke from the European Union and the U.S. State Department.
Under the law, prisoners got early release if their cells were too hot or too cold, were too small or had damp on the walls. Of the 21,000 that were granted parole, 7,000 were individuals convicted of murder, rape, robbery and pedophilia.
Since, then about 500 re-offended and are serving prison time.
Alfred Simonis, a lawmaker in the Chamber of Deputies for the Social Democratic Party said the party would vote to repeal the law on Wednesday.
“We are all aware of the harmful effects of this law… which must be urgently annulled. Even if we have to pay damages, we prefer to pay this money than for more people to die,” he said.
Last week, the government approved financing for 600 probation officers.
