In brief

  • Curtea Constituțională (the Constitutional Court of Romania) has unanimously rejected dozens of joined constitutional challenges in which drivers argued that a court should be able to shorten or lift the driving licence suspension imposed together with the fine. The contested provisions of the Road Traffic Code and of the law on administrative offences remain constitutional.
  • As a result, the binding interpretation given by the High Court through Decision No. 5/2021 stands: the judge hearing a challenge against a traffic ticket may not assess whether the suspension of the right to drive is proportionate, because its length is fixed by law at 30, 60 or 90 days.
  • In practice, you can contest the traffic ticket as a whole before the court, but you cannot ask merely for a shorter suspension. Either the main penalty falls away, or the additional penalty stays in place with it.
Act: CCR Decision No. 52/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) No. 628 of 30 July 2026
In force from: 30 July 2026

A driver who has been fined and left without a licence for 30, 60 or 90 days cannot ask a judge to cut the length of the suspension. The Constitutional Court confirmed that rule through Decision No. 52 of 22 January 2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 628 of 30 July 2026, dismissing as unfounded an unusually large batch of constitutional challenges referred by courts across the country. It is the second piece of bad news for drivers to come from the Court in recent months, after it ruled that a fine remains valid even if you did not show up at the traffic police when summoned.

What is at stake is very concrete. The Road Traffic Code, that is Government Emergency Ordinance No. 195/2002, attaches a double penalty to certain offences: the fine, as the main penalty, plus suspension of the right to drive, as an additional penalty. The length of that suspension is not left to anyone’s discretion. It is written into the law, by severity class: 30 days for the offences listed in Article 100 para. (3), 60 days for those in Article 101 para. (3) and 90 days for those in Article 102 para. (3).

In 2021, Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (the High Court of Cassation and Justice) was asked to settle conflicting case law across the courts. Through Decision No. 5 of 12 April 2021, delivered in an appeal in the interest of the law and published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 608 of 18 June 2021, the panel for appeals in the interest of the law ruled that a court hearing a challenge against a traffic ticket which imposed the additional penalty of a temporary suspension of the right to drive has no power to examine whether that additional penalty is proportionate. The interpretation is binding on all courts.

Dozens of penalised drivers took that very interpretation to the Constitutional Court, arguing that it turns the judge into little more than a notary rubber-stamping the traffic ticket. The Court has told them no once again.

What it changes in practice

The first consequence is that the High Court’s interpretation stays in force, with the authority conferred by an appeal in the interest of the law. Every district court or tribunal hearing a road traffic case continues to apply it, and a driver can no longer raise the argument that it is unconstitutional, because the question has now been settled.

The second consequence concerns defence strategy in court. A request along the lines of “I admit the offence, but I ask the court to cut my suspension from 90 days to 30 because I earn my living behind the wheel” has no legal basis. The judge cannot invent an intermediate length, because that would add to the law and breach the principle that penalties must be laid down by statute.

The third consequence is the tight link between the two penalties. The additional penalty follows the fate of the main one. If the court annuls the traffic ticket or replaces the fine with a warning, the suspension disappears as well. If the fine stands, so does the suspension, for the length written into the law. There is no middle ground.

The fourth consequence is one of sheer volume. In a single ruling, the Court disposed of a very large number of joined files referred by courts in Cluj, Satu Mare, Bucharest, Sibiu, Suceava, Bihor, Baia Mare, Iasi, Oradea, Brasov, Arad, Timis, Neamt, Vaslui, Olt, Caras-Severin, Harghita, Maramures, Hunedoara and many other counties. Those files now go back to the referring courts, which will rule on the merits without waiting any longer for the Court’s answer.

The fifth consequence is procedural. The decision is final and generally binding from the date of publication, that is from 30 July 2026, under Article 147 para. (4) of the Constitution.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In substance, nothing has changed, and that is precisely the news. The Court confirmed a line of case law it had already built in three earlier rulings: Decision No. 344 of 9 July 2024, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 30 of 15 January 2025, Decision No. 516 of 17 October 2024, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 1026 of 5 November 2025, and Decision No. 563 of 31 October 2024, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 169 of 26 February 2025. In each of them, the challenge was dismissed as unfounded.

The 2026 reasoning is short and rests on that continuity. In paragraph 80, the Court found that no new elements had emerged capable of changing its case law, so both the outcome and the reasoning of the earlier decisions remain valid. This is the classic mechanism the Court uses to close off a series of repetitive cases.

What has changed, though, is legal certainty. Until now, lawyers could hope that the sheer number of referrals, coming from dozens of courts, might prompt a rethink. Decision No. 52/2026 shows that this is not happening, and the unanimous vote, without a single dissenting opinion, drives the message home.

It is also worth noting what the Court did not examine. In paragraph 81, it stated that arguments based on the right to work, on confiscation, on economic freedom, on the composition of the Constitutional Court and on the effects of its rulings were irrelevant to these cases, because the criticism targeted strictly the interpretation given to the legal texts by High Court Decision No. 5/2021, concerning the additional penalty of suspending the right to drive.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It brings predictability. A driver knows in advance, straight from the text of the law, exactly how many days the suspension will last for the offence committed, without depending on the view taken by one panel of judges or another.
  • It removes a genuine source of conflicting case law. Before High Court Decision No. 5/2021, some courts reduced the length and others did not, so the outcome depended on the county.
  • It unblocks dozens of files that had been stayed pending the Constitutional Court’s answer and can now be heard on the merits.
  • It leaves intact the line of defence that really matters: contesting the lawfulness and the substance of the traffic ticket as a whole, including asking for the fine to be replaced by a warning, in which case the suspension falls away too.
  • It protects the deterrent effect of the penalty. A uniform suspension, applied to everyone, sends a clear message about serious offences on the road.

What remains a problem

  • The judge cannot take the offender’s personal circumstances into account, even though Article 21 para. (3) of Government Ordinance No. 2/2001 expressly requires the penalty to be proportionate to the degree of social danger of the act.
  • The impact of a suspension is deeply unequal in real life. The same 90 days mean an inconvenience for an occasional driver and the loss of a job for a professional one.
  • The drivers who brought the challenges relied on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which in Malige v. France examined licence suspension through the lens of criminal law safeguards. The Constitutional Court did not take up that discussion on the merits, referring instead to its own earlier rulings.
  • The written opinion submitted by the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Law at the West University of Timisoara, which supported the opposite solution, has found no echo in the case law.
  • The difference in treatment flagged by the applicants remains: an offender in an administrative case is worse off than a defendant in a criminal trial, where the court does assess whether an additional penalty is proportionate.

Practical advice

  1. Do not build your court challenge around the length of the suspension. A request asking only for a shorter period will be rejected, whatever the personal reasons. Attack the traffic ticket as a whole: the description of the offence, the way it was recorded, compliance with procedure, the evidence relied on.
  2. The real target is the main penalty. If you obtain a warning instead of the fine, or the annulment of the traffic ticket, the suspension disappears with it. That is the only route by which a court can actually remove the suspension.
  3. Respect the 15 day deadline from the date the traffic ticket was handed over or served, for filing the challenge. A missed deadline destroys any defence, however strong.
  4. Check the legal classification of the offence. The difference between Article 100 para. (3), Article 101 para. (3) and Article 102 para. (3) means 30, 60 or 90 days. A wrong classification by the officer is a serious ground for challenge.
  5. If you need your licence for work, plan the period. Tell your employer and organise your workload in advance. The court will not shorten your suspension for that reason, and driving during the suspension is a criminal offence under Article 335 of the Criminal Code.
  6. Do not confuse an administrative suspension with the cancellation of a licence. These are different legal regimes, with different procedures and different consequences.
  7. Remember that the ruling applies from publication. Cases pending on 30 July 2026 are decided within this framework, with no need for a fresh referral to the Court on the same issue.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Constitutional Court decide, in short?
It dismissed the constitutional challenge as unfounded and found that the contested provisions of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 195/2002 and of Government Ordinance No. 2/2001, as interpreted by High Court Decision No. 5/2021, are constitutional. The ruling was adopted unanimously.
Can I ask a court for a shorter licence suspension?
No. The length of the additional penalty is set by law at 30, 60 or 90 days, and the court cannot examine whether it is proportionate or set an intermediate period. Doing so would add to the law and create a new class of penalties.
So what can I still obtain from a judge?
You can obtain the annulment of the traffic ticket or the replacement of the fine with a warning. In both situations the additional penalty falls away, so the suspension is no longer enforced. The court reviews the lawfulness and the substance of the traffic ticket in full.
What is High Court Decision No. 5/2021 and why does it matter so much?
It is a ruling delivered in an appeal in the interest of the law, the mechanism by which the High Court unifies case law across the courts. The interpretation it sets out becomes binding on all courts from the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, which took place on 18 June 2021.
What were the drivers’ main arguments?
That the interpretation deprives the judge of any power to weigh personal and factual circumstances, that it empties free access to justice and the right to a fair trial of their substance, and that it discriminates against drivers compared with the regime of additional penalties in criminal law, where proportionality is assessed.
Why was the Court’s reasoning so short?
Because it had already ruled three times on the same issue, in Decisions No. 344/2024, No. 516/2024 and No. 563/2024. Since no new elements had emerged, the outcome and the reasoning of those rulings remain valid, and the Court simply refers back to them.
Does the ruling change suspensions that have already been imposed?
No. The decision confirms the existing legal framework, it does not amend it. Ongoing suspensions run for the period set out in the traffic ticket, and pending cases are decided under the same rules.
What happens if I drive during the suspension?
The act is no longer an administrative offence but a crime under Article 335 of the Criminal Code, with far more serious consequences than the original administrative penalty.
What is the difference between the main penalty and the additional one?
The main penalty is the fine or the warning. The additional penalty, under Article 96 para. (1) of the Road Traffic Code, is intended to remove a dangerous situation and prevent further prohibited conduct, and it is imposed through the same traffic ticket. Suspension of the right to drive for a limited period is one of these additional penalties.
Is there any point in raising the same challenge in a new case?
No. Once dismissed, a challenge with the same subject matter becomes inadmissible in other cases, and the issue is treated as settled by a final and generally binding ruling.

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. 628 of 30 July 2026 32 pages PDF, 191 KB the act starts on page 2

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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.