I. At its sitting of 14 May 2024, as part of the a priori constitutional review, the Constitutional Court ruled as follows:
– Unanimously, it dismissed, as inadmissible, the exception of unconstitutionality of the provisions of Article 1 (1), Article 2 (5) to (13), Article 3 and Article 33 (1) of Government Emergency Ordinance No 21/2024 on certain measures for the organization and conduct of the elections for the Romanian members of the European Parliament in 2024 and of the elections for the local public administration authorities in 2024, and, by a majority vote, it dismissed, as unfounded, the exception of unconstitutionality and found that the provisions of Article 2 (2) (d), of the first part of the second sentence of Article 2 (4) and of Article 2 (14) of Government Emergency Ordinance No 21/2024, as well as the emergency ordinance as a whole, were constitutional in relation to the pleas filed.
In essence, with regard to the pleas of unconstitutionality related to the emergency ordinance as a whole, the Court held that the reasons contained in its preamble justified the existence of an extraordinary situation whose regulation could not be postponed, because, given the scale and number of elections held in 2024, there was the risk of holding the elections for the European Parliament and the local elections in inappropriate conditions. The Court also held that the legislator had the opportunity to establish the conditions for the composition of the Central Electoral Bureau within the limits set by the Constitution, but that, when deciding to organise elections of a different nature on the same date, the State bodies involved in the electoral process, which, par excellence, are common, must be established according to homogeneous criteria such as to ensure the organizational cohesion, as well as the legal certainty of the electoral process. Therefore, even if the normative act was adopted less than a year before the date of the elections and modifies the composition of the Central Electoral Bureau, it does not produce legal uncertainty for the electoral competitors. On the contrary, the normative solution of holding the two categories of elections on the same date made it necessary to establish a set of common and homogeneous rules for the proper conduct of the elections, in conditions of fairness for all the competitors involved in the electoral process.
In view of the above, the Court found that the emergency ordinance did not violate the constitutional provisions regarding legal certainty, separation and balance of State powers, the role of Parliament as the sole legislative authority of the country, the conditions for adopting emergency ordinances and the decisions of the Constitutional Court.
As concerns the pleas of intrinsic unconstitutionality regarding the provisions of Article 2 (2) (d), of the first part of the second sentence of Article 2 (4) and of Article 2 (14) of Government Emergency Ordinance No 21/2024, the Court ruled that the composition of the Central Electoral Bureau at the stages provided for therein was not directly related to electoral rights, not being part of either the substantive or the procedural component thereof. The impugned regulation does not affect the purpose of the establishment of the Central Electoral Bureau, i.e., to ensure the conduct of the electoral process in a democratic, transparent and multi-party manner. Therefore, the Court held that these provisions did not violate the constitutional provisions regarding the prohibition of restricting the exercise of electoral rights by emergency ordinances.
Regarding the unconstitutionality of Article 1 (1), Article 2 (5) to (13), Article 3 and Article 33 (1) of Government Emergency Ordinance No 21/2024, the Court held that these regulations did not concern aspects related to the composition of the Central Electoral Bureau and, therefore, were not related to the settlement of the case pending before the court of law that referred the matter to the Constitutional Court, and, as such, it dismissed as inadmissible the exception thus formulated.
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The decision is final and generally binding.
The arguments retained as grounds for the solution delivered by the Constitutional Court shall be presented within the decision, which shall be published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
II. Moreover, the Constitutional Court postponed to 29 May 2024 the settlement of:
– The objection of unconstitutionality of the Law approving Government Emergency Ordinance No 71/2023 for the establishment of an extension of the deadlines provided for in Article 262 (32) of Law No 85/2014 on insolvency prevention and insolvency proceedings, objection filed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice;
– The objection of unconstitutionality of the Law on Consumer Protection regarding the total cost of lending and the assignment of receivables, objection filed by MPs belonging to the Parliamentary Group of the Save Romania Union and by non-affiliated MPs.
Foreign Relations, Press and Protocol Department
of the Constitutional Court