In brief

  • The Section for Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy has amended three articles of the Rules of Internal Procedure of the Courts. The same new sentence appears in all three: cases are allocated „applying the procedure on managing the activity of the courts by reference to case processing capacity”.
  • The amendment covers the whole journey of a case through a court: handing it over after registration (Article 94), allocating statements of claim at first instance (Article 107) and allocating cases on appeal or second appeal (Article 115). Proceedings started before September 2026 come under the new rule the moment they reach the higher court.
  • The decision enters into force on 15 September 2026, seven days after publication. The new text does not say what the procedure it makes compulsory contains and does not identify it by number or date, and the procedure does not appear published in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial).
Act: Decision of the Section for Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy no. 1.223 of 19 May 2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania no. 764 of 8 September 2026
In force from: 15 September 2026

From 15 September 2026, a case filed with a court in Romania no longer goes automatically into the random allocation to panels. The Section for Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 764 of 8 September 2026 Decision no. 1.223 of 19 May 2026, which adds the same condition in three places in the Rules of Internal Procedure of the Courts: allocation is made „under the present rules, applying the procedure on managing the activity of the courts by reference to case processing capacity, approved by decision of the Section for Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy”. The Rules of Internal Procedure are the document that sets out how every district court, tribunal and court of appeal works on the inside, from the hour at which the clerk enters the courtroom to the panel that hears an application for recusal.

Random allocation is the mechanism by which a case reaches a panel drawn by lot by the computer system, rather than chosen by somebody. It is the guarantee that nobody picks his own judge and that nobody picks another person’s judge. Decision no. 1.223/2026 does not abolish the drawing of lots. It adds a filter before it: before the case enters the lottery, a check is made whether the court still has, on that day, the capacity to take it on.

What „processing capacity” means is not written in the decision. The procedure the three amended articles refer to was approved separately, by Decision of the Section for Judges no. 1.642 of 9 July 2026, and it too enters into force on 15 September 2026. According to the information made public by the Council and to press reports from July 2026, the mechanism calculates for every court and for every field a maximum number of cases that may be allocated in a day, by reference to the number of judges actually at work. Cases above the daily ceiling are neither lost nor rejected: they are entered on a waiting list and go into allocation in order of arrival, as capacity frees up. Capacity not used on one day is carried over to the next working day. Cases treated as urgent are allocated the same day, even if the ceiling has been reached, and a court’s capacity may thus turn negative.

The practical difference for the person filing a statement of claim is the date on which the case is given a panel and, consequently, the date on which it can be given a first hearing. Until 15 September 2026, the rules required cases to be handed over to the person responsible for random allocation and allocated under the rules, with no reference whatever to the court’s workload. After that date, the same operation is carried out „applying the procedure”, that is, it may lawfully be put off.

The timetable of the act is worth reading carefully. The decision was adopted on 19 May 2026, in the sitting in which the Section for Judges voted the amendment to the rules for the introduction of workload norms. It was published in the Official Gazette of Romania on 8 September 2026, that is 112 days later. Courts and litigants are left with 7 days between publication and entry into force.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is legal and can be seen in the text: random allocation becomes a conditional operation. The three amended articles cover the moments at which a case changes hands inside the court. Article 94(9) concerns the handing over of the case from the person who establishes the subject matter to the staff who carry out the allocation. Article 107(1) concerns statements of claim at first instance. Article 115(2) concerns the reviewing court, that is the court hearing the appeal or the second appeal.

The second effect is one of calendar. The date on which a case enters allocation no longer necessarily coincides with the date on which it was registered. Between the two moments a waiting period may be inserted whose length is not set by the rules, but by the ratio between the number of applications filed and the calculated capacity of the court. The hearing date is set after allocation, so the delay is passed on down the line, as in a chain.

The third effect concerns coverage in time. The amendment does not apply only to proceedings started after 15 September 2026. Article 115(2) concerns cases that reach the court of appeal or of second appeal, and proceedings begun years earlier reach those courts. A case registered at the district court in 2024 and appealed in October 2026 comes before the court of appeal under the new rule.

The fourth effect is one of transparency, and it cuts both ways. The Superior Council of Magistracy presents the mechanism as a measure that makes the overloading of the courts visible: if the delay is measured and published, it can be invoked before Parliament and the Government as an argument for posts and budget. The effect depends entirely, however, on the data the system will make public, and the amended rules provide for no obligation to publish anything.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The Rules of Internal Procedure of the Courts were approved by Decision of the Section for Judges no. 3.243 of 22 December 2022, published in Official Gazette of Romania nos. 1.254 and 1.254 bis of 27 December 2022. In the 2022 version, the three paragraphs amended now contained no reference at all to the volume of activity.

Article 94(9) had two sentences. The first said who establishes the subject matter of the case, a clerk with higher education, under the coordination of a judge. The second said that, once the case has received a number in the ECRIS system, it is handed over to the staff responsible for random allocation, with the proofs of transmission attached. The text stopped there. Decision no. 1.223/2026 keeps both sentences untouched and adds a third, which says what those staff do next: they allocate „under the present rules, applying the procedure”. In practice, Article 94 no longer describes only a transfer of papers, but points to the rule by which it is decided whether the transfer produces an immediate allocation or not.

Article 107(1) had a single sentence: cases containing statements of claim are transmitted to the person designated for random allocation, „with a view to allocation to panels”. The sentence ended there. Now it continues with the same condition. It is the only change made by point 2 of the decision, and it turns a purely logistical provision into one that can produce delay.

Article 115(2) had three sentences, and the decision touches only the first. The second sentence, the one saying that the registration rules applying at first instance apply accordingly to the means of challenge, remains identical. The third also remains unchanged in content: on appeal or on second appeal a separate case file is formed with the same number, bearing the marker «A» for appeal and «R» for second appeal respectively, to which the merits file of the case is attached. A clarification is worth making here, because the expression is misleading. „The merits file of the case” does not mean the core of the proceedings or the substantive arguments, but the physical and electronic folder of the case tried at first instance, the one containing the application, the evidence and the judgment challenged. It is attached to the newly formed file at the higher court, so that the appeal judges have before them everything that has existed until then. The only visible difference from 2022 is typographical: the Romanian quotation marks „A” and „R” in the original rules now appear as angle quotation marks «A» and «R».

There is one further change that shows not in the text of the rules but in their architecture. Until now, the criteria by which a case reaches a panel were entirely in the rules, that is in an act published in the Official Gazette of Romania and accessible to anyone. After 15 September 2026, the rules say that allocation is made applying a separate procedure, and the content of that procedure sits in another act, which has not been published in the Official Gazette of Romania and which does not figure in the Council’s public register of decisions either. The rules remain public. The rule that decides when a case enters allocation does not.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It makes visible and measurable a delay that exists anyway. A case that today gets a hearing date eight months away because the judge has too many cases produces the same wait, but leaves no trace in the system. The waiting list turns it into a figure.
  • It spreads the pressure more evenly between panels. Pure random allocation can, statistically, send a run of heavy cases to the same judge. The daily ceiling per court and per field limits the build-up.
  • The amendment is minimal and surgical. It does not touch the principle of random allocation, does not change the jurisdiction of the courts, does not introduce criteria of content. The three interventions add exactly the same sentence, which reduces the risk of divergent readings between courts.
  • It gives the Council an argument in figures in the discussion about posts and budget. If the waiting list of a district court grows month by month, the figure becomes hard for a ministry refusing posts to contest.

What remains a problem

  • The rule that actually counts is not published. From the amended rules one cannot find out the daily ceiling of a court, nor which cases are urgent, nor how long a case may wait. The text refers to a procedure it does not identify by number and date.
  • The postponement has no maximum term. The rules provide for no limit in days after which a case on the waiting list must go into allocation, whatever the capacity.
  • The party has no means of challenge. The rules do not provide for who tells the litigant that his case has been left waiting, what position it occupies and who he may ask for a review.
  • A vacatio legis of seven days is short for a change of workflow across every court in the country, all the more so for a text written more than three months before publication.
  • The category of „urgent cases” becomes decisive, and its definition is not in the rules. In practice, what matters to a litigant is whether his case falls on that list or not, and the list is not in the published act.

Practical advice

  1. If you have a statement of claim ready to file and nothing obliges you to wait, file it before 15 September 2026. Cases registered by then go into allocation under the old rule.
  2. Check whether your situation falls under a procedure with a short statutory deadline, such as the presidential injunction, the protection order or the objection to enforcement. These are the natural candidates for the list of urgent cases, and the request has to be framed expressly as such, with the legal basis indicated.
  3. After filing, follow the case on portal.just.ro. The date on which the allocated panel appears is, from now on, the information that counts. If the case number exists but the panel does not show up for days on end, the case is most probably waiting.
  4. Keep proof of the date of registration, the receipt from the registry or the electronic confirmation. The order on the waiting list is the order of arrival, so a certain date becomes relevant in practice, not only formally.
  5. If a limitation period or a forfeiture deadline is close, say so in the application. Filing interrupts limitation whatever the moment of allocation, but an express mention helps in having the urgency recognised.
  6. On appeal or on second appeal, do not assume that the case goes up automatically and at once. The amended Article 115(2) applies there too, and the merits file is attached after the new file has been formed at the higher court.
  7. If you are a lawyer or in-house counsel with a large portfolio, compare from 15 September 2026 the interval between registration and allocation across different courts. It is the only way in which the working of the ceiling can be documented from the outside.

Frequently asked questions

Is the random allocation of cases being abolished?
No. The drawing of lots between panels remains. Decision no. 1.223/2026 adds a prior condition: allocation is made applying the procedure on case processing capacity. Who gets the case is still decided at random, but the moment at which it is decided can be put off.
From when does it apply?
From 15 September 2026. Article II of the decision expressly sets that date, so the general rule of three days from publication does not apply.
What does „case processing capacity” mean?
The maximum number of cases a court can take on in a day, calculated for each field, according to the judges actually at work. The figure is not in the decision. It follows from the procedure approved separately by the Section for Judges on 9 July 2026.
What happens to my case if the court has reached its ceiling on the day I file?
The application is registered as normal and receives a number in the ECRIS system. The case does not, however, go straight into allocation to panels, but onto a waiting list, from which it comes out in order of arrival, when capacity frees up.
Is anything lost if the case stays on the waiting list?
Neither the number, nor the date of registration, nor the effect of filing on limitation periods is lost. What is put off is only the moment of allocation to a panel and, consequently, the first hearing date.
Are urgent cases affected?
According to the public information about the procedure, cases classified as urgent are allocated the same day, even if the ceiling has been exceeded. The list of those cases is not in the amended rules, but in the separate procedure.
Does the amendment apply to proceedings started before 15 September 2026?
Yes, indirectly. Article 115(2) concerns cases that reach the court of appeal or of second appeal. Proceedings started two years ago and appealed after 15 September 2026 will be allocated at the higher court under the new rule.
What does „the merits file of the case” in Article 115 mean?
It does not refer to the legal substance of the dispute, but to the physical and electronic file formed at first instance, with the application, the evidence and the judgment challenged. On appeal or second appeal a new file is created, with the same number and with the marker «A» or «R», to which the file from the first instance is attached.
Where can I read the procedure the decision refers to?
For the time being, nowhere in a complete official source. The procedure was approved by Decision of the Section for Judges no. 1.642 of 9 July 2026, but it does not appear published in the Official Gazette of Romania, nor in the public register of decisions of the Superior Council of Magistracy. From the published rules one can learn only that it exists and that it applies.
Who signed the decision and on what basis?
The decision is signed by the president of the Superior Council of Magistracy, judge Gheorghe-Liviu Odagiu, and was adopted with the unanimous vote of the members of the Section for Judges present. The basis invoked is Article 133(5) and (7) of the Constitution and Article 23(1) of Law no. 305/2022 on the Superior Council of Magistracy, with a reference to Article 152(2) of Law no. 304/2022 on judicial organisation.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article I points 1, 2 and 3, the reference to an unidentified and unpublished procedure. All three amended paragraphs make allocation conditional on „the procedure on managing the activity of the courts by reference to case processing capacity, approved by decision of the Section for Judges of the Superior Council of Magistracy”. The decision does not state the number and the date of that decision, and the act in question, Decision of the Section for Judges no. 1.642 of 9 July 2026, does not appear published in the Official Gazette of Romania. The consequence is not one of form: from the published rules, a litigant cannot establish the ceiling of the court, nor which cases are urgent, nor how long the wait may last, so he cannot reach any conclusion about the moment at which his case is given a panel. Article 152(1)(b) of Law no. 304/2022 requires precisely „the manner and criteria for allocating cases to judicial panels” to be laid down by the Rules of Internal Procedure, and paragraph (2) of the same article requires the rules to be published in the Official Gazette of Romania. The amendment moves the criteria outside the act that the law wants public.

Editorial analysis

The decision has four articles and three amendments, all identical in wording. It is a clean act from a technical point of view: it contradicts nothing in the rules, leaves no category without a rule, introduces no mutually exclusive deadlines. Its problem is not what it says, but what it does not say and where the rest has been moved.

The calendar says more than the text. From adoption, 19 May 2026, to publication, 8 September 2026, 112 days went by. From publication to entry into force, 7 days go by. The ratio is 16 to 1. The Council took sixteen months of preparation, measured in units of seven days, for every week it gives the courts and the lawyers to adapt. And the text that reaches them now was written in May, before the procedure it makes compulsory existed.

Which is where the second observation lies. Decision no. 1.223/2026 was adopted on 19 May 2026 and refers to a procedure „approved by decision of the Section for Judges”. That procedure was approved only on 9 July 2026, that is 51 days later. On the date the members of the Section voted the amendment to the rules, the act they were referring to did not exist. The situation had been put right by 15 September 2026, when both enter into force on the same day, but the order in which the work was done explains why the rules describe a procedure without naming it: at the time of drafting there was no number to give it.

The third observation concerns the preamble. The 2022 decision approving the rules invoked Article 23(1) and Article 41(1)(e) of Law no. 305/2022, and point (e) is the text saying that the Section for Judges „shall adopt, under the law, the Rules of Internal Procedure of the Courts”. The 2026 decision invokes only Article 23(1), which says something else entirely: that the Council operates as a body with permanent activity and that decisions are taken in plenary or in sections. The competence exists and remains covered by Article 152(2) of Law no. 304/2022, cited in the preamble, so the outcome does not change. It is worth noting nonetheless that the same Article 152(2) provides that the rules „shall be drawn up by the Superior Council of Magistracy and by the Ministry of Justice”, and the preamble of the decision mentions no participation of the ministry in the amendment.

What should be changed

  • Publication of the procedure in the Official Gazette of Romania, together with the annexes and the calculation formulas. Without it, the rule that decides when a case enters allocation remains an internal document, and the transparency invoked as the reason for the reform stops exactly before the part that concerns the litigant.
  • Identification of the procedure by number and date in the text of the rules. The formula „approved by decision of the Section for Judges” forces the reader to work out for himself which act is meant. A reference to Decision no. 1.642/2026 would close the discussion in one line.
  • A maximum waiting term, written into the rules. If a case stays on the waiting list beyond a set number of days, it should go into allocation compulsorily, and the overrun should be reported publicly by the court.
  • Display on the portal of the case’s position on the waiting list. Today the litigant sees on portal.just.ro the case number and the panel. He should also see whether the case is waiting, what position it occupies and what the daily capacity of that court is.
  • Definition of the categories of urgent cases in the rules, not in the procedure. It is the only decision in the whole mechanism that directly changes the fate of a particular case, so it is the one that most needs to be public and stable.
  • A route for review for the party whose case is left waiting. Either an application to the president of the court, or a procedure for classifying a case as urgent, settled within a short term and with reasons given.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 764 of 8 September 2026 8 pages PDF, 83 KB the act starts on page 7

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.