In brief

  • A defendant made a denunciation, the prosecutor’s office told him it would not give him the sentence reduction provided for by the witness protection law, and he challenged before the Constitutional Court the definition on which the refusal rested. The Court rejected the request as inadmissible, without ruling on its substance, so the definition stays word for word as it was.
  • Letter h) of Article 2 of Law no. 682/2002 says what „infracțiune gravă”, a serious offence, means throughout the law, by means of a list of categories to which it adds a threshold. The list covers genocide and offences against humanity and war crimes, offences against national security, terrorism, murder, trafficking in drugs, in persons and in minors, money laundering, counterfeiting of currency or of other instruments of value, offences concerning the regime of weapons, ammunition, explosive, nuclear or other radioactive materials, and corruption offences. The threshold added at the end: any other act punishable by imprisonment whose special maximum is at least 10 years.
  • For witnesses already in the protection programme nothing changes. The decision does not touch the conditions for entering the programme, does not alter any right and creates no obligation. The man who raised the question had gone to the wrong address: his complaint was about the way the prosecutor’s office applied the law, and that is a matter for the ordinary courts, not for the Constitutional Court.
Act: Decision of the Constitutional Court no. 188 of 4 March 2026 on the plea of unconstitutionality of the provisions of Article 2(h) of Law no. 682/2002 on witness protection
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 820 of 25 September 2026, pages 9-10
Delivered: 4 March 2026, unanimously
Final and generally binding: 25 September 2026, the date of publication

The Constitutional Court rejected as inadmissible the plea by which a defendant in a case before the Timișoara Court of Appeal argued that the definition of a „serious offence” in the witness protection law is too unclear to be applied. Decision no. 188 of 4 March 2026, published on 25 September 2026, leaves Article 2(h) of Law no. 682/2002 exactly as it was. What was really at stake was Article 19 of the same law, the text that reduces the sentence of a person who denounces a serious offence, a mechanism on which the Court ruled on the merits in another case in 2026.

What letter h) defines can be said in one sentence: it lays down what, for the purposes of this law, a serious offence is. The method has two layers. The first is a list of categories, from genocide, offences against humanity and war crimes through to corruption, passing through national security, terrorism, murder, trafficking in drugs, in persons and in minors, money laundering, counterfeiting of currency or of other instruments of value, and breaches of the regime of weapons, ammunition, explosive, nuclear or other radioactive materials. The second layer is a safety net: any other offence for which the law provides a sentence of imprisonment whose special maximum is at least 10 years.

The man who raised the plea, Ioan Sorin Buță, was at the appeal stage in a criminal case. At the request of the court, the Military Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Timișoara Military Tribunal filed in the case, on 9 December 2021, a reply stating that his denunciation and his statements had made it possible to identify and charge a suspect for two acts covered by Article 37(a) of Law no. 126/1995 on the regime of explosive substances. In the same reply, the prosecutor’s office took the view that Article 19 of the witness protection law did not apply to him.

His criticism started from a single word. He argued that the notion of „materiale explozibile”, explosible materials, is not regulated in any legal act, whereas both the Criminal Code and Law no. 126/1995 speak of the regime of weapons, ammunition and explosive substances. From the lack of clarity of the text there would follow, he said, the impossibility of applying Article 19, a rule of criminal law that sets sentencing limits, which would breach Article 1(5) and Article 23(12) of the Constitution, as well as Article 7 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The Timișoara Court of Appeal, whose opinion is reproduced in the decision, answered that the list in letter h) is generic, that it does not single out particular offences, and that the phrase about explosive materials is to be read by reference to Chapter III of Title VII of the Special Part of the Criminal Code and to Law no. 126/1995. The Constitutional Court followed the same line, but stopped earlier: it found that the author does not formulate genuine criticisms of unconstitutionality, but is dissatisfied with the way the text is applied and with the outcome the court might reach in his case. Interpreting and applying the law is for the ordinary courts, under Article 126(1) and (3) of the Constitution, and unifying practice is for the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

What it changes in practice

For protected witnesses and for those entering the protection programme, the decision produces no effect at all. Neither the conditions of admission, nor the protective measures, nor the obligations of the authorities are touched. The definition in Article 2(h) continues to apply as it was published when the law was republished, in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 288 of 18 April 2014.

The effect is felt elsewhere, in criminal cases where someone has made a denunciation and asks for a reduction of sentence. There, the decision confirms that classifying the denounced act in one of the categories in letter h) is an operation of interpreting and applying the law, carried out by the judge hearing the case, not by the Constitutional Court. Whoever contests the prosecutor’s refusal must contest it before the trial court and, further on, in the avenue of appeal.

The third effect is one of procedural economy, in the negative sense: the case sat before the Court for 1,541 days and ended without any answer to the question put. From 25 September 2026 the decision is final and generally binding, but what it binds is solely the finding of inadmissibility.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Nothing changes in the text. The definition keeps the same list and the same threshold of 10 years, and Article 19 of the witness protection law keeps its content.

What changes, for anyone who might want to take up the criticism again, is its procedural prospects. A plea built on the idea that the definition is unclear because the law uses „materiale explozive”, explosive materials, where the critic reads „materiale explozibile”, explosible materials, now has a precedent of inadmissibility. The next person to raise it will have to show that they are attacking the text, not the way it was applied to them.

It is also worth noting how the decision came to be delivered. The hearing took place in the public sitting of 4 December 2025, and the Court postponed delivery successively, under Article 57 and the first sentence of Article 58(1) of Law no. 47/1992, until 4 March 2026. Between the hearing and the delivery 90 days went by, for a solution that does not touch the merits.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The definition of a „serious offence” stays stable, and the witness protection programme suffers no disturbance in pending cases.
  • The decision plainly recalls the division of powers: classifying an act in a legal category is done by the court hearing the case, not by the constitutional court.
  • Reproducing letter h) in full puts at the public’s disposal, in a single place, the complete list of categories and the threshold of 10 years that completes it.
  • The opinion of the Timișoara Court of Appeal, set out in the decision, offers the working method: the phrase is to be read by reference to Chapter III of Title VII of the Special Part of the Criminal Code and to Law no. 126/1995.

What remains a problem

  • The substantive question is left unanswered. Nobody learns whether a list of generic categories, completed by a sentencing threshold, is precise enough for a text on which the length of a sentence depends.
  • The case sat for 1,541 days, and publication added another 205, for a two-page decision that merely finds that it cannot adjudicate.
  • The text of Article 19 of Law no. 682/2002 is reproduced nowhere, although the whole dispute starts from it. The reader is left with the effect, not with the rule.
  • The published text bears the marks of hasty drafting, four of them, besides the gap in the reasoning in paragraph 11: in paragraph 4 the reference is to a „Lege nr. 682/2020” that does not exist, and the phrase under attack is quoted without the comma that makes it intelligible; paragraph 12 carries the formula „lipsită de claritate și imprevizibilitate”, lacking in clarity and in unforeseeability, which says the opposite of what it means; and in paragraph 14 a criminal case contains a reference to interpretation and application by the „organul fiscal”, the tax authority, left over from reasons written on a different subject.
  • The presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, the Government and the Ombudsman sent no point of view, although all four had been notified.

Practical advice

  1. If you have made a denunciation and are hoping for a reduction of sentence, check first whether the denounced act falls within one of the categories in Article 2(h) or exceeds the threshold of a special maximum of 10 years. Without that, Article 19 cannot even be discussed.
  2. Ask the prosecutor’s office for the answer in writing, with reasons. In this case, the reply filed on 9 December 2021 stated only the conclusion, and the reason why the benefit was refused does not appear from it.
  3. If you disagree with the refusal, the route is the court hearing the merits of the case, and then the avenue of appeal. Interpreting and applying the law is not settled at the Constitutional Court.
  4. Do not build a plea of unconstitutionality on a word that the text does not use. The statutory text says „materiale explozive”, explosive materials, not „materiale explozibile”, explosible materials, and the difference was fatal to the request in this case.
  5. When you invoke the lack of clarity of a rule, show what exactly a person acting in good faith cannot understand, not what unfavourable outcome you received. The first is a constitutional criticism, the second is not.
  6. If an act seems to fit none of the categories in the list, check the last part of letter h): the threshold of a special maximum of 10 years works as a net for everything that is not listed.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly does letter h) of Article 2 of the witness protection law define?
It defines the notion of a „serious offence” used throughout the law, by means of a list of categories, from genocide and war crimes through to corruption, completed by any other act punishable by imprisonment whose special maximum is at least 10 years.
Does anything change for witnesses in the protection programme?
No. The decision alters neither the conditions for entering the programme, nor the protective measures, nor any obligation of the authorities.
Why was the plea rejected as inadmissible?
Because the author was not criticising the text of the law, but the way the prosecutor’s office had applied it in his case and the outcome the court might have reached. Applying the law falls within the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, under Article 126 of the Constitution.
What has the definition to do with the reduction of sentence?
Article 19 of the same law lays down a special ground for reducing the sentence of a person who denounces a serious offence, and letter h) says which acts are serious, so it decides whether the benefit can be discussed at all.
How long did the case last?
The Timișoara Court of Appeal referred the matter to the Constitutional Court on 14 December 2021, the hearing took place on 4 December 2025, delivery on 4 March 2026, and publication on 25 September 2026. Between the referral and the delivery 1,541 days went by.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Paragraph 11. The text reproduces the prosecutor’s reply in three steps that do not hold together: first it shows that the denunciation made it possible to charge a suspect for two acts covered by Article 37(a) of Law no. 126/1995 on the regime of explosive substances; then it quotes letter h), under which a serious offence is, among others, one concerning breaches of the regime of weapons, ammunition, explosive, nuclear or other radioactive materials; and finally it says „ca atare, s-a apreciat că nu îi sunt aplicabile autorului excepției prevederile art. 19”, accordingly, it was considered that those provisions did not apply to the author of the plea. Read literally, the two premises lead to exactly the opposite conclusion, and the missing link appears nowhere in the decision, which neither reproduces nor summarises the text of Article 19 of Law no. 682/2002. A reader acting in good faith cannot establish from the published act why the benefit was refused, even though the refusal is the only reason why the plea was raised.
  • Paragraph 4. In setting out the author’s criticism, the decision misquotes the very phrase under attack: it writes „materialelor explozive nucleare sau a altor materii radioactive”, explosive nuclear or other radioactive materials, although the text of Article 2(h) of Law no. 682/2002, reproduced correctly in paragraphs 9 and 11, reads „materialelor explozive, nucleare sau al altor materii radioactive”, explosive, nuclear or other radioactive materials. Without the comma after „explozive”, the enumeration reads as a single category, explosive materials of the nuclear kind, instead of three parallel categories, and „a altor” in place of „al altor” adds on top of that a grammatical disagreement in the Romanian text. In a decision whose sole object is the clarity of that enumeration, the version in paragraph 4 is less clear than the text criticised.
  • Paragraph 4 again. The same account of the criticism refers to „art. 19 din Legea nr. 682/2020”, an act that does not exist. The witness protection law bears the number 682/2002, the form used correctly in the rest of the decision, thirteen times, from the title to the operative part. The mistake falls on the very rule on which the whole case depends, Article 19, the one that grants the reduction of sentence, and it sits in the very sentence explaining why the text would supposedly not apply.
  • Paragraph 12. Summarising the position of the author of the plea, the decision writes that the concept criticised „este lipsită de claritate și imprevizibilitate”, lacking in clarity and in unforeseeability. The formula says the opposite of what it means: the complaint was about a lack of clarity and of foreseeability, and as the sentence is written it reproaches the statutory text with being foreseeable. In paragraph 4 the same criticism is rendered correctly twice, first „lipsa de claritate și previzibilitate a textului de lege criticat”, the lack of clarity and foreseeability of the statutory text criticised, then „lipsa de claritate și previzibilitate a dispozițiilor criticate”, the lack of clarity and foreseeability of the provisions criticised, which shows that the wrong form is a slip made in summarising, not a systematic error.
  • Paragraph 14. In showing why review falls to the courts, the decision acknowledges their power to establish whether „interpretarea și aplicarea de către organul fiscal”, the interpretation and application by the tax authority, of the provisions criticised were correct. The case is a criminal one, the rule in question defines the serious offence, and no tax authority appears anywhere in the file. The sentence is left over from reasons written on a tax matter and was not adapted.

Editorial analysis

The decision runs to two pages and can be read in a few minutes, but the figure that characterises it cannot be seen on reading: between the referring order, given on 14 December 2021, and the delivery, 1,541 days went by, and publication added another 205. Of those, 90 days lie between the hearing of 4 December 2025 and the delivery of 4 March 2026, an interval in which the Court postponed the solution successively, under Article 57 and the first sentence of Article 58(1) of Law no. 47/1992. Successive postponements, for a decision that finds it has nothing to adjudicate, say something about the way the order of business is settled.

The second observation concerns an asymmetry that does not show when the act is read from end to end. The presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, the Government and the Ombudsman were notified, under Article 30(1) of Law no. 47/1992, and none of them sent any point of view. The only written institutional opinion in the file belongs to the Timișoara Court of Appeal and coincides, in substance, with the reasoning: this is a matter of interpretation. The solution it proposed, however, was rejection as unfounded, not as inadmissible. The submissions of the prosecutor, present at the sitting of 4 December 2025, are summarised nowhere in the decision, although the examining formula lists them among the documents taken into account. The question therefore sat on the docket for over four years and two months without any central authority considering that it deserved a written answer, and the only position expressed orally did not make it into the published text.

The third observation concerns the quality of the drafting. In paragraph 4 the reference is to „art. 19 din Legea nr. 682/2020”, an act that does not exist; everywhere else in the decision the same article is cited correctly, from Law no. 682/2002. Paragraph 12 contains the formula „lipsită de claritate și imprevizibilitate”, lacking in clarity and in unforeseeability, which says exactly the opposite of what it means. Further down, in paragraph 14, in a criminal case about explosive substances and witness protection, it is stated that it falls to the courts to establish whether the interpretation and application „de către organul fiscal”, by the tax authority, were carried out correctly, a sentence visibly left over from reasons written on a tax matter. And in paragraph 4, where the criticism is set out, the phrase under attack is quoted without the comma that separates explosive materials from nuclear ones, that is, in precisely the form the author complains of as unclear. None of the four changes the solution, but all four appear in a text of two pages, delivered after several successive postponements.

What should be changed

  • The decision should also reproduce the text of the rule on which the author’s interest depends. Here, Article 19 of Law no. 682/2002. Without it, the reader sees the refusal of a benefit, but not the conditions for it, and so can check nothing.
  • The prosecutor’s answer to a request concerning the application of Article 19 should give reasons, not merely a conclusion. One sentence about the condition that was not met would have closed the discussion in this case before it reached the Court and would have spared more than four years of waiting.
  • Law no. 682/2002 should refer expressly to the acts that define explosive substances. A bracket with Law no. 126/1995 and with the chapter of the Criminal Code would remove precisely the ambiguity the author complained of, without changing anything in the substance of the rules.
  • The absence of points of view should be recorded with a consequence, not merely noted. When four notified authorities do not answer, their silence should at least be explained to the Court; otherwise the obligation in Article 30(1) of Law no. 47/1992 remains a formality.
  • Decisions should go through a checking read before publication. Four visible mistakes on two pages, one of them a reference to an act that does not exist, are corrected in five minutes and would not reach the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial).

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. 820 of 25 September 2026, pages 9-10 16 pages PDF, 115 KB the act starts on page 9

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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.