Part II
Stefan DEACONU, Ph. D., Reader, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Law, Department of Public Law, The legal disputes of a constitutional nature between the judicial authority and the other public authorities, in the case-law of the Constitutional Court of Romania
The 2003 revision of the Romanian Constitution gave to the Constitutional Court a new attribution, that of solving legal disputes of a constitutional nature between public authorities.
Article 146 paragr. e) of the Constitution provides for the attribution of the Constitutional Court to solve legal disputes of a constitutional nature between the public authorities, upon the request of the President of Romania, one of the presidents of the two Chambers, the Prime Minister or the president of the Superior Council of Magistracy. Such an attribution is also provided by Constitution of other states (for example, art. 189 from the Constitution of Poland and art. 160 from the Constitution of Slovenia). In cases of disputes of authority (or organic litigations), constitutional judges solve or adjusts constitutional litigations pertaining to the content and the extent of their attributions imparted to public authorities in public. The aim is to eliminate possible institutional blockages.
On the other hand, it has to be emphasized the fact that this provision risks to be a trap-attribution, which was censored by the Constitutional Court itself when it had to verify the constitutionality of the project law established in order to revise the Constitution in the year 2003. In its decision, the Court pointed out that, in order to avoid the implication of the Constitutional Court in the solving of certain political disputes, it is necessary to be highlighted that the text refers only to institutional blockages, respectively to the positive and negative competition disputes. In the same direction, the Opinion of the European Commission for Democracy through Law from Venice stated that, although such a constitutional provision is a progress of the state of law, a Constitutional Court is not an organ of mediation between the powers of the state, in charge of adjusting their disputes and finding „political” solutions for their litigations. Trying to clarify the collocation „juridical disputes of constitutional nature between the public authorities”, the Venice Commission said that it actually refers to the positive and negative competition disputes in a specific case. Subsequently, this solution has been taken by the Constitutional Court in its case-law.
From an analytical perspective of this attribution of the Romanian Constitutional Court, the present article offers an analysis of the Romanian constitutional case-law in the matter of the legal disputes of a constitutional nature solved by the Constitutional Court in the last 5 years. The article concerns only those disputes emerged between the judicial authority and the other public authorities.
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