The new Minister of Justice, Professor Valariu Pop, has received the Bucharest representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and explained to him the position with regard to the Citizenship Law and the problem of the Staatenlose.
The J.T.A. representative asked the Minister whether he would continue with the Bill introduced into the Senate by his predecessor, M. Hamangiu, to amend the Roumanian Nationality Law, and whether he would take into consideration the fact that the Hamangiu Bill had been objected to by the leaders of Jewish opinion as not far-reaching enough and incapable of providing facilities for the tens of thousands of Jewish Staatenlose in the new provinces to acquire citizenship.
I am determined, the Minister replied, to take all necessary measures to regulate the question of the Staatenlose and to bring about the amendment of the law dealing with the acquisition and loss of Roumanian citizenship.
I have not yet had time to study the documents, he went on, to see whether my predecessor’s draft law will meet the position, or whether it will have to be changed. I will go into the question this week. I shall examine all the draft laws which have already been introduced to Parliament, including the Bill for the amendment of the citizenship law, and I shall also study the Parliamentary minutes dealing with the question. Fundamentally, my position is that all people who are entitled to citizenship according to the Constitution must be given an opportunity of acquiring their citizenship rights, subject to very easy formalities.
The J.T.A. representative reminded Professor Pop that Jewish opinion had been very favourably impressed by his statement in Parliament before he had become Minister of Justice, repudiating the charges made by the Cuzist Deputy Robu against the Jewish judges in Bukovina and his declaration that all Roumanian judges are reliable, whether they are Jewish or not. The Jews appreciate the high opinion which the Roumanian Government had expressed through him of the abilities and impartiality of the Jewish judges in the former Austrian provinces who had been taken over by the Roumanian State from the Austrian judiciary, he said, but they felt concerned at the fact that in the last 12 years practically no Jews had been appointed to be judges in Roumania, although there certainly were a number of qualified persons for judicial posts among the young Jewish lawyers.
M. Pop said in his reply that he did not know how to account for this. He asked if a sufficient number of applications were made by Jewish lawyers for appointment to the judiciary. In any case, he said, the Government would make no distinction between citizens in the appointment of its officials. The only question that would be considered would be the qualification and ability of the candidate. The fact that anyone is a Jew, he said, is no obstacle in the view of this Government and of myself, he concluded, in the matter of appointment to the State service in general, and the judiciary in particular.
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