Half of the minimum fine can also be paid for older offence reports, the Constitutional Court says

If you were fined before the summer of 2018 and your case is still pending, you can ask to pay half of the minimum amount laid down by law. The Constitutional Court of Romania examined exactly this type of situation in Decision No. 762 of 11 December 2025, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 631 of 30 July 2026. It dismissed the plea as inadmissible, but the reasoning contains the argument on which a defence can be built. This is the second important clarification on administrative offences published on the same day, alongside the decision in which the Court held that a court cannot shorten the suspension of a driving licence.

The case itself comes from the Cluj Tribunal. Victor-Mihai Bălănescu had been penalised for disturbing the peace of residents by making loud noise and shouting, an offence set out in Article 2 point 25 of Law No. 61/1991. At the time of his complaint, Article 9 of that law expressly stated that Government Ordinance No. 2/2001 applied, with the exception of the provisions on payment of half of the minimum fine. In other words, the benefit was ruled out.

In the meantime Law No. 203/2018 entered into force and changed the rule. The applicant asked for it to be applied, but the court took the view that this was not possible, because Article 22(1) of the same law states that offence reports drawn up earlier remain under the old law.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is that a line of case law is confirmed. The Court has previously dismissed identical pleas as inadmissible, in Decision No. 141 of 16 March 2022, Decision No. 465 of 13 July 2023 and Decision No. 166 of 21 March 2024. The argument is consistent: what the applicants complain about is not a flaw in the text, but the way the courts interpret it.

The second effect, the one that matters in practice, is the guidance given to the courts. The Court expressly notes, in paragraph 17, that applying Article 22(1) without regard to Article 22(2), which gives effect to the constitutional principle of the more favourable administrative offence law, is a question of interpretation to be resolved by the court hearing the merits. In substance, this is a clear invitation not to read the transitional provision in isolation.

The third effect is that the scope of the transitional provision is delimited. Drawing on Decision No. 166/2024, the Court explains that the phrase “enforcement of the administrative penalty” has a very broad meaning: it covers both voluntary payment and enforcement procedures, such as a request addressed to bailiffs or direct enforcement by the tax authorities. For those procedures, the legislature had good reason to choose the old law. It does not follow, however, that the benefit of paying half the amount is blocked as well.

The fourth effect concerns method. The Government’s position, recorded by the Court, stresses that the benefit under Article 22(2) does not apply automatically: it presupposes an expression of intent by the person fined, meaning actual payment of half of the minimum within 15 days. It is not a right that switches itself on in the file.

The fifth effect is that the discussion remains open in each individual case. The decision does not settle whether the more favourable law applies in a given case; it says who decides, namely the court ruling on the merits.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

No provision of law is amended. What is clarified is a shift of approach brought about in 2018, which the Court describes in very plain terms.

Before Law No. 203/2018, under Article 28(1) of Government Ordinance No. 2/2001, the person fined could pay half of the minimum fine on the spot or within 48 hours at the latest, but only on condition that this option was expressly mentioned in the legal act defining the offence. There were therefore entire laws in which the benefit was missing, exactly the case of Law No. 61/1991.

Law No. 203/2018, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 647 of 25 July 2018, made the benefit general. Article 22(2) provides that, from the date it entered into force, the person fined may pay half of the minimum fine laid down by law even in those situations where the legal act defining the offences did not expressly provide for that option.

The difference between the two paragraphs of Article 22 is the heart of the dispute. Paragraph (1) is a transitional provision of a procedural nature: for older offence reports, the application and enforcement of the penalty are governed by the law in force on the date of the report. Paragraph (2) is, in the view of the applicant, a provision of substantive law, because it concerns the applicable penalty directly and should therefore apply retroactively, as the more favourable law.

The Court does not reject that reasoning on the merits. It sends it where it considers it belongs: to the court hearing the case.

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