The Constitutional Court has decided that the idea belonging to Gheorghe Funar and Ioan Ghise, according to which radio stations and television channels should broadcast the same amount of negative and positive news, an idea voted for by all the Romanian senators, is breaking the fundamental law. But the Constitutional Court has got in such an embarrassing situation by doing a caretaker's job and cleaning the dirt left by the senators! So the Constitutional Court has got to restore common sense because senators are lawmaking their carelessness! This is not about a complicated law with complex juridical implications. One mustn't be a judge to be astonished at it. One mustn't be an eye doctor to blink. But if the Senate decide we are to keep one eye open and the other shut, then the 9 Constitutional Court judges, rather old, big-bellied and fond of the Front for National Salvation, become useful, for we would be allowed to blink again. The initiative authored by Gheorghe Funar, a representative of the "Greater Romania" Party, and Ioan Ghise, a Liberal, is a good start for Bolshevism, a typically communist theory. Apart from being immoral or illegal, the latter is a defiance of common sense, showing disdain for the people and feeling the need to do them good by force, as well as for the reality it twists in a propagandistic manner. The acknowledged purpose of this initiative is "to improve the general environment and give the audience a chance to get balanced perceptions of daily life, both psychologically and emotionally", because "negativism kills". Therefore the "audience" hasn't got the right to learn about the real state of things and search for the truth, but they must be provided with perceptions, necessarily balanced, so that they would suffer no psychological or emotional disturbance. Such a rule may work for the small children, but it surely doesn't work for a nation. Since senators are unable to change the true state of things, they want to change the perception of it, that is deliver us a false image of the daily life. I have got 10 apples: 1 is good and 9 are rotten. Customers say they are rotten. But I show a rotten one together with the good one and I say: "That is not true! Can you see? Half of them are good." This is called cheat. It would have been no problem, had this proposal coming from the two politicians been just an item of funny news. Anyone may express any idea, for everyone has got the right to speak up. When it is about a senator who is pleading for nonsense, it is no longer funny. It is no longer about two droll senators, it is about the Romanian Senate giving "precious directions in fields such as radio and television". Culture would be the next step to take. We should get more optimistic literature, more colorful painting and livelier music. Encouraging creation, therefore. "We sing thee, Romania" was a communist show aimed at the same: offer a perception and improve the environment. There is 'god environment' when there is no political and popular opposition to the rulers and when we pretend life is "en rose". There was someone more competent who informed us about it before the Senate has done it: Ion Iliescu. Apart from the falling asleep during debates, the image of the Romanian MPs is harmed by such laws as well. But the paradox is the following: had they voted against such laws, they wouldn't have to vote for this one. How many similar laws are there, subtler, less striking laws passed by the Parliament, but not reaching the Constitutional Court? How many such laws are there used in fishy ways and in fields that don't effect on us straight? Regulation has got nothing to do with the real issue of news about violence or news flawed as far as their relevance is concerned. These are matters of editorial policy, often subject to financial and political interests, subjectivity and amateurishness, which can indeed twist reality. But none of these can twist it more than ideological censorship does. The Funar-Ghise law consists in one single sentence, which proves that not only the genius work is simple. Stupidity and rascality too can be very simple due to the uninominal votes of Romanian senators!

Rasvan MOLDOVEANU