The inspector who wrote the finding report can be heard as a witness: Romania’s Constitutional Court upholds the rule

A man sent to trial after an inspection by the Forestry Guard tried to have the testimony of the very inspectors who had checked his company removed from the file, arguing that they were no longer entitled to be witnesses. The Constitutional Court told him he had confused two different categories of authority, and that the legal texts are constitutional. Decision No. 161 of 26 February 2026 was published in the Official Gazette of Romania only on 31 July 2026, in the same wave of rulings as the one on mayors sitting on school boards and the conflict of office rules, a sign of the usual gap between the ruling and its publication.

The author of the challenge, Țîmbău Valerică, was being tried at the Focșani District Court for forgery of private documents, in a case opened after an inspection at the company he represented. The inspection had been carried out by staff of the Focșani Forestry Guard and of the Obștea Tulnici Forest Range, and those people were later heard in the trial as witnesses.

The defence built a chain of reasoning: the finding report is the first document in the file, the one that triggered the investigation; whoever draws it up would therefore be a kind of prosecuting authority; and a criminal investigation body that has been a witness in the case is disqualified under Article 64 paragraph (1) letter c) read together with Article 65 paragraph (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On that basis, the inspectors could no longer testify. The author also invoked the comparison with administrative offence law, where the officer who issues the report cannot be a witness, plus the European Court of Human Rights judgment of 26 October 1984 in De Cubber v. Belgium.

The Court rejected the challenge as unfounded, unanimously, and found that Article 61 paragraph (1) letter b), paragraphs (2) and (5), Article 64 paragraph (1) letter c), Article 65 paragraph (1) and Article 114 paragraphs (3) and (4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure are constitutional in relation to the criticism raised. The core argument is straightforward: the finding bodies under Article 61 do not carry out criminal prosecution, their powers stop before it begins, and Article 114 paragraph (4) expressly states that persons who have drawn up reports under Articles 61 and 62 may be heard as witnesses.

What it changes in practice

The decision is final and generally binding from the date of publication, 31 July 2026. It does not change a single word of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but it definitively closes a line of defence used in cases that start from an administrative inspection.

Anyone investigated after a check by the Forestry Guard, the Environmental Guard, the labour inspectorate, the tax authorities or any other control structure listed in Article 61 can no longer ask for the inspectors’ statements to be set aside on the ground that they are disqualified. Courts now have an explicit constitutional reference for dismissing such a request, without staying proceedings to refer the matter to the Court.

What remains untouched is any defence that attacks the substance of the testimony. The Court did not say that the inspector is right in what he states, only that he may be heard. His credibility, the corroboration of his statement with the rest of the evidence, contradictions with the content of the report and any personal interest are all argued before the trial judge, as with any witness.

A second practical effect concerns the status of the finding report itself. The Court recalls that, under Article 61 paragraph (5), it is a document notifying the prosecuting authorities, not a means of evidence, and it cannot be challenged in administrative litigation. Its findings enter the file precisely through the hearing of those who drew it up, with questions from the defence, which respects the adversarial principle.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The rule of law itself has not changed. What has changed is how solid it is in practice: to the series of rulings already saying the same thing, one more is now added, delivered in 2026 and published with general binding effect.

The Court noted that it had already ruled on similar criticism in Decision No. 198 of 7 April 2016, Decision No. 97 of 1 March 2018 and Decision No. 243 of 19 April 2018, all of them rejections. As regards Article 114 paragraph (3), compliance with the right to a fair trial and with the right to a defence had been established by Decision No. 763 of 28 November 2019. The 2026 conclusion is unequivocal: no new elements have arisen, so both the solution and the reasoning of the earlier rulings remain valid.

The boundary between the two categories of authority has also been clarified, in the very place where the defence had tried to erase it. A finding body observes and records, within the limits of its inspection powers, and then notifies. A criminal investigation body gathers and assesses evidence. The disqualification regime was designed for the second, in order to protect the impartiality of the investigation, and it does not extend by analogy to the first.

One more point is worth keeping: the fact that in administrative offence matters the reporting officer cannot be a witness does not carry over into criminal law, where the report has a different status and the law expressly allows the hearing.

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