In brief
- When several people commit an offence together, a procedural step taken in respect of only one of them interrupts the limitation period for all of them, even if the others never found out about it.
- The Constitutional Court dismissed, by unanimous vote, the criticism that the rule would breach equality before the law, the right to a defence and the right to a fair trial.
- The Court’s argument: the limitation period concerns the offence, not the person, and the opposite solution would grant society’s forgiveness to those participants in respect of whom no procedural steps were taken.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 567 of 10 July 2026
Pronounced: 16 October 2025
In a case with several defendants, the limitation clock is not measured separately for each of them: a single procedural step restarts it for everyone. The Constitutional Court confirmed the rule through Decision no. 451 of 16 October 2025, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 567 of 10 July 2026, by which it dismissed as unfounded the plea raised against Article 155(3) of the Criminal Code. It is one of the decisions in which the Court draws a sharp line between substantive criminal law and criminal procedural law, as it also did when it held that a plea agreement does not entail the suspension of a civil servant.
The text under discussion consists of a single sentence: “The interruption of the limitation period produces effects in respect of all participants in the offence, even if the act of interruption concerns only some of them.” Participants means the perpetrators, co-perpetrators, instigators and accomplices in the same offence.
The plea was raised by a defendant before the Constanța Tribunal, Criminal Division, which referred the matter to the Court by the interlocutory order of 26 April 2021. He argued that criminal liability is personal, and that the in rem effect of the interruption places him in the position of bearing the consequences of a step he has no way of knowing about, which makes his defence harder.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is that the rule is maintained. The text remains in force, and in any case with several participants the limitation period is calculated by reference to the offence, not to the person. A procedural step carried out in the case, no matter in respect of whom, opens a new time limit for everyone.
The second effect concerns the defence. The Court showed that the guarantees under Article 24 of the Constitution and under Article 6(3) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are not applicable here, because they are secured through rules of criminal procedural law, whereas Article 155(3) is a rule of substantive criminal law. It is a distinction with practical consequences: criticism regarding lack of knowledge of the steps taken in the criminal investigation must be argued on procedural ground, not on the constitutionality of the substantive rule.
The third effect is the consolidation of a line of case law. The Court showed that it had already ruled on the same criticisms through Decision no. 443 of 22 June 2017, Decision no. 740 and Decision no. 757, both of 14 December 2023, and Decision no. 70 of 1 February 2024. The representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office had asked for dismissal by invoking the last two.
The fourth effect concerns pending cases. The decision is final and generally binding from the date of publication, so defence arguments built on the idea that the interruption should operate in personam no longer have any constitutional support.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
In the letter of the law, nothing. The decision does not amend the text and does not add conditions. It confirms a solution the Court had already given four times, the first in 2017.
What has been clarified is the reason why the rule is not an exception to the personal character of criminal liability. The Court explains the limitation period through its social function: the passage of time diminishes the resonance of the offence until society forgets it. Since forgetting concerns the offence, not each participant separately, any step that brings the offence back to the attention of the judicial bodies stops the running of time for everyone.
This is also where the reversal of the equality argument comes from. The author of the plea said that the rule put him at a disadvantage. The Court replies that the opposite solution would create a more favourable regime for the participants in respect of whom no procedural steps were taken, although they are in the same legal situation as the others. In other words, it is precisely the in personam effect that would breach Article 16 of the Constitution.
It has also been clarified what exactly is extinguished by the limitation period. The Court describes it as the extinction of the State’s right to hold a person liable, therefore as a forfeiture by the judicial bodies of that right, viewed objectively, across the whole of the facts, not subjectively, from the perspective of each person involved.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It closes, unanimously, a criticism repeated for almost a decade in criminal cases with several defendants.
- It explains clearly why the limitation period is calculated by reference to the offence: otherwise, the participants who were not investigated would receive a pardon the others do not get.
- It separates the two grounds clearly: the complaint that you did not find out in time about a step in the criminal investigation is settled through the rules of procedure, not through constitutional review of a substantive rule.
- It gives the courts a single set of reasons, drawn from five decisions, for the cases stayed on this ground.
What remains a problem
- A participant may remain under the threat of criminal liability for years on end because of procedural steps that do not concern him and that he has no way of learning about.
- The decision says nothing about the upper limit of this effect in cases with a very large number of defendants, where procedural steps follow one another continuously.
- Of the three constitutional provisions invoked, Article 16, Article 21(3) and Article 24, the decision expressly answers only Article 16 and Article 24.
- Between the referral to the Court and the publication of the decision, 1,901 days passed, in a criminal case in which the limitation period was the very issue at stake.
Practical advice
- If you are a defendant in a case with several participants, do not calculate the limitation period only by reference to the steps that concern you. Ask your lawyer to check all the procedural steps in the case, no matter in respect of whom they were taken.
- Bear in mind the distinction the decision draws: criticism regarding lack of knowledge of a step in the criminal investigation is made on the basis of the rules of criminal procedure, not on the unconstitutionality of Article 155(3).
- The special limitation period remains the ceiling. However many interruptions there may be, the special limitation period under Article 155(4) of the Criminal Code closes the discussion, so check that time limit first.
- If you have a case stayed pending this decision, ask for it to be restored to the court list. The decision is final and generally binding from publication in the Official Gazette of Romania.
- For the full reasoning, read Decision no. 443 of 22 June 2017, paragraphs 17 to 26. The later decisions, including this one, repeat it almost identically.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does Article 155(3) of the Criminal Code say?
Who are the participants in the offence?
What interrupts the limitation period?
Does the rule apply even if I was not notified of that step?
Is there still a time limit?
Does the decision change anything in the Criminal Code?
Why did publication take so long?
Editorial analysis
The decision has a merit that few dismissal decisions have: it explains an institution, it does not merely reject a challenge to it. The definition of the limitation period it gives, that of a diminishing social resonance of the offence until society forgets it, is not ornament. Everything else follows from it, including the conclusion that the effect of the interruption can only be in rem. If forgetting is measured by reference to the offence, then remembering too, meaning the procedural step that brings the offence back to the attention of the judicial bodies, is measured by reference to the offence.
What happens to the equality argument is interesting. The author of the plea invoked it in order to obtain individualised treatment. The Court uses it to reject exactly that treatment: if the limitation period operated separately for each person, the participants in respect of whom no procedural steps were taken would receive a pardon the others do not get, although they are in the same legal situation. It is a reversal that does not come out of nowhere: the same construction, by which the provision invoked by the author becomes the argument for dismissal, is found throughout the series of decisions this one continues.
A gap in the answer nevertheless remains. In paragraph 15, the decision lists three constitutional grounds invoked: Article 16, Article 21(3) and Article 24. The analysis expressly covers Article 16, in paragraph 25, and Article 24, in paragraph 26, together with Article 6(3) of the Convention. Article 21(3), which guarantees the right to a fair trial, is not named anywhere in the examination part. The reasoning in paragraph 26, according to which procedural guarantees are not tested against a rule of substantive law, fits it too, but the decision does not say so.
One last detail, of the calendar kind, which shows up only if you put the dates side by side. Decisions no. 740 and no. 757 were pronounced on the same day, 14 December 2023, on the same issue. The first was published on 5 August 2024, the second on 17 June 2024, 49 days apart. The present decision was pronounced on 16 October 2025 and published 267 days later. From the referral to the Court, by the interlocutory order of 26 April 2021, to publication, 1,901 days passed. In a case about the limitation period, that is to say about the legal effects of the passage of time, this interval is not a mere administrative detail.
What should be changed
- All the constitutional grounds invoked should receive an express answer. Even when the answer is common to all of them, naming each provision invoked spares the trial courts an interpretation they otherwise have to make on their own.
- Decisions pronounced on the same day, on the same issue, should be published together. The 49 days that separated the publication of Decisions no. 740 and no. 757 meant, for the trial courts, two different moments from which the same solution became binding.
- The in rem effect would deserve to be paired with a procedural guarantee of information. The substantive rule is coherent, but its practical consequence, namely that a participant bears the effects of a step he does not know about, can be corrected in the Code of Criminal Procedure, on exactly the ground the decision points to.
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. 567 of 10 July 2026 16 pages PDF, 111 KB the act starts on page 3
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