A citizen cannot challenge an appointment made by Parliament: the CCR shows where the wall stands

If Parliament appoints someone to a public office and you believe the appointment was made unlawfully, you have nowhere to turn. The Constitutional Court has explained why, in Decision no. 107 of 5 February 2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 572 of 13 July 2026. It is the second decision in this period in which the Court repeats that it cannot add to the law what the legislature left out, after the one in which it refused to supplement the rules on the revision of conflicting judgments.

The starting point is concrete. Cristian Munteanu applied for the annulment of Chamber of Deputies Resolution no. 15/2010, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 394 of 15 June 2010, by which a judge was appointed to the Constitutional Court. The court of first instance dismissed the application as inadmissible, and in the appeal on points of law before the High Court of Cassation and Justice he raised the plea of unconstitutionality.

The text under attack, Article 27(1) of Law No 47/1992, says who may bring before the Court the constitutionality of the rules of procedure of Parliament and of the resolutions of the two Chambers: one of the presidents of the Chambers, a parliamentary group, at least 50 deputies or at least 25 senators. A citizen does not appear on the list.

What it changes in practice

The list of those who may refer a matter to the Court stays closed. The decision is final and generally binding. Article 27(1) of Law No 47/1992 remains as it stands, so a private individual does not acquire the right to ask for constitutional review of a resolution of Parliament.

Resolutions of the Chamber of Deputies stay outside administrative litigation. The Court pointed out that Article 67 of the Constitution classifies them as legal acts specific to the legislative authority, and that the definition of an administrative act in Article 2(1)(c) of Administrative Litigation Law No 554/2004 does not fit them.

The blockage comes from the Constitution, not from the law under attack. This is the essential point of the decision. Article 126(6) of the Constitution guarantees judicial review of administrative acts, but it exempts the acts concerning the relations of the public authorities with Parliament. The action was dismissed as inadmissible because of that constitutional text, not because of Article 27(1) of Law No 47/1992.

The first ground of inadmissibility follows from this. In its case-law, the Court has held that a plea raised in an action that was inadmissible from the outset is itself inadmissible, because the Court’s decision would produce no effect on that case. The plea would have been admissible only if it had attacked the very provisions that make the action inadmissible, which was not what happened here.

The second ground concerns the limits of the Court. The criticism did not claim that the text says something unconstitutional, but that it does not say enough: it does not allow a party to the proceedings to bring the matter before the courts. The Court replied that it may not amend or supplement the provisions under review, under Article 2(3) of Law No 47/1992, and that it has no power to create new rules.

The Court went further and named the real stake. It held that the author of the plea was in fact seeking to amend the constitutional rule in Article 146(d), by adding a new object of the plea of unconstitutionality, the resolutions of Parliament, „which is unacceptable”.

The route that remains is the political one, not the judicial one. Constitutional review of the resolutions of Parliament does exist, but it is triggered only by a referral from those entitled to make it under the law. Through the point of view submitted by the Government, the Court recalled that it had allowed such referrals where the act had constitutional relevance, for example in Decision no. 847 of 18 November 2020, on the appointment of the president of the Legislative Council.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In terms of the rules, nothing. The decision dismisses the plea as inadmissible, so it does not touch the text. What changes is the clarity of the route: until now, a private individual could try both doors, administrative litigation and, by way of a plea, the Constitutional Court. The decision closes both of them explicitly and explains why each is closed for a different reason.

The Court has answered the same criticism once before, in Decision no. 127 of 14 March 2024, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 957 of 24 September 2024, where it dismissed as inadmissible the plea directed at the final sentence of the same Article 27(1). What is new in 2026 is that the reasoning now covers the whole paragraph, not just the final sentence, and that the order in which the two grounds of inadmissibility are examined is set out step by step.

One element of procedural context is also worth keeping in mind: the plea was raised by the interlocutory judgment of 4 November 2020, the decision was delivered on 5 February 2026 and published on 13 July 2026. More than five years and eight months passed between the referral and publication, in a file opened in 2017.

From the point of view of the referring court, the position was the same from the start. The High Court considered the criticised provisions constitutional, pointing out that appointment resolutions are adopted in the exercise of a prerogative belonging to the legislature itself, not as mere administrative decisions, and that they are expressions of national sovereignty.

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