An application for a daily fine against someone refusing to comply with a judgment is heard once, with no right of appeal

You won a case in which the court ordered someone to do something only he can do, he does not do it, and your application to have him fined day by day until he complies was dismissed. You have nowhere to challenge that dismissal, and the Constitutional Court has confirmed that this is right. Decision no. 215 of 5 March 2026 dismisses as unfounded the plea raised by a litigant from Maramureș against the phrase „final interlocutory judgment” in Article 906(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure. It is the third time in two years that the Court has confirmed that enforcement proceedings are heard with fewer appeal routes than an ordinary case, after it said the same thing about the objection to enforcement.

The penalty under Article 906 is not compensation. It is a civil fine per day of delay, of between 100 and 1,000 lei, which the court may set in the creditor’s favour in order to push the debtor into performing his obligation. It applies only to obligations to do or not to do that cannot be performed by anyone else, that is, where there is no way of having a third party do the thing in the debtor’s place.

The decision is final and generally binding and takes effect from publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, that is, from Friday, 28 August 2026.

Still on the Code of Civil Procedure, another CCR decision settles whether a court must expressly answer the submissions the parties make, in the reasoning of the judgment, under Article 425(1)(b).

What it changes in practice

In another 2026 decision the Constitutional Court looked at the opposite case, an interlocutory ruling that can be challenged: a refusal to refer a case to it is appealed within 48 hours, and the grounds have to be put in writing.

The first effect is that the provision stands. Article 906(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure remains unchanged: „Când obligația nu este evaluabilă în bani, instanța sesizată de creditor îl poate obliga pe debitor, prin încheiere definitivă dată cu citarea părților, să plătească în favoarea creditorului o penalitate de la 100 lei la 1.000 lei, stabilită pe zi de întârziere, până la executarea obligației prevăzute în titlul executoriu.”, that is, where the obligation cannot be valued in money, the court seised by the creditor may order the debtor, by a final interlocutory judgment given with the parties summoned, to pay the creditor a penalty of between 100 and 1,000 lei per day of delay, until the obligation set out in the enforceable title is performed.

The second effect is the confirmation of the reading given by the High Court. By Decision no. 73 of 16 October 2017, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 914 of 22 November 2017, the Panel for the Resolution of Points of Law had established that the interlocutory judgment settling an application for penalties is final whatever the enforcement court decides, that is, both where it grants and where it dismisses. The Constitutional Court examined the phrase in exactly that reading and found it in conformity with the basic law.

The third effect concerns why the law is built this way. The Court restated the argument from Decision no. 16 of 30 January 2024: the purpose of the penalty is to make a debtor acting in bad faith perform, countering the manoeuvres that tend to drag out performance of the obligation. It would be illogical and contrary to that purpose for the interlocutory judgment imposing the fine to be open to appeal, because the very delay the fine combats would be achieved by exercising the appeal.

The fourth effect concerns the position of the creditor, that is, of the party who won the case. The Court explained that an application for penalties has no standing of its own in relation to enforcement: it is an ancillary procedure, which can be settled only within the enforcement. For that reason, settling it cannot form the object of a separate trial for which the legislature would put in place the guarantees of a fair trial, appeal routes included.

The fifth effect is the asymmetry the Court describes explicitly, taken over from the case-law of the High Court. The debtor has an instrument the creditor does not: if he performs the obligation in the enforceable title, he may seek the reduction or removal of the amount set as a penalty, by way of an objection to enforcement, by proving sound reasons that justified the delay. The creditor has no procedural means at all for the corresponding increase of the amount already set, and for him the interlocutory judgment is final and enforceable.

The sixth effect is the route left to the creditor. Penalties are not compensatory in nature and do not cover the loss suffered; they are a means of indirect constraint. They may be granted independently of the damages to which the creditor is entitled under Article 892 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the two categories of sums being different in nature and purpose. A creditor dissatisfied with the size of the penalty may therefore claim damages in a separate action.

The seventh effect is that two of the criticisms raised were not examined at all. The author had invoked Article 1(5) of the Constitution, on the quality of the law, but the Court found that he confined himself to a formal reference to the provision, without showing where the contradiction lay, and the Court cannot take the place of the author in setting out his plea. Likewise, Article 53, on the restriction of the exercise of certain rights, cannot be relied on for as long as no breach has been found of any provision enshrining a fundamental right.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In law, nothing. The provision stands, the High Court’s reading stands, and pending cases carry on under the same rules. The decision is communicated to the Maramureș County Court, the court that seised the Constitutional Court, and the appeal from which it all started resumes.

What has changed is how settled the solution now is. The Court had already ruled on the same provision, in the same reading, by Decision no. 16 of 30 January 2024, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 1033 of 15 October 2024. The new decision adopts the grounds of that decision in full and finds that no new elements have arisen. Three levels of jurisdiction therefore say the same thing: the High Court in 2017, the Constitutional Court in 2024 and again in 2026.

Something has changed as well for anyone who might want to reopen the fight. The argument the author started from, that a decision of the High Court is not a law and cannot restrict constitutional rights, was rejected on the merits: the Court did not discuss whether the supreme court had added to the law, but examined the provision in the reading given and found it constitutional. A fresh plea built the same way stands little chance.

Finally, an administrative point has been cleared up. The author had sought public legal aid in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court. Relying on Decision no. 20 of 17 September 2008, the Court answered that Emergency Ordinance no. 51/2008 on public legal aid in civil matters does not apply to it, being incompatible with the nature of the proceedings before it.

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