Five days to challenge an interim injunction: the CCR explains why the clock starts before you receive the judgment

You have five days from the delivery of the judgment to challenge an interim injunction, even though the written judgment has not reached you yet. The Constitutional Court says the rule is constitutional, because within those five days you only have to lodge the appeal, while the grounds can be submitted later. The plea was raised by Asociația Civică Acvila of Bucharest, in its own name and on behalf of Dan Mihalașcu and Ionuț Virgil Stan, together with Laurențiu Apostol, Cătălin Irinel Bălăucă and Dan Băzăvan, in a case before the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Administrative and Tax Litigation Division. It is the third decision published on the same day dealing with appeals and the final stages of a trial, after the one holding that at the merger of sentences the court searches again for the more favourable criminal law. Decision no. 53 of 22 January 2026 was published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 605 of 24 July 2026.

The contested text is Article 1000(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure: unless special laws provide otherwise, an interim injunction is subject only to appeal, within 5 days from the delivery of the judgment where it was granted after the parties were summoned, and from service where it was granted without summoning them. Where the application is heard at first instance by a court of appeal, the remedy is a second appeal (recurs), under paragraph (4) of the same article, but the rule for calculating the time limit stays the same.

The authors of the plea complained about something that sounds reasonable: on the date of delivery you do not know the court’s reasoning, because the judgment has not yet been drafted. How can you challenge within five days a solution whose reasons you have not read? They also pointed out that some courts deliver their judgments in chambers rather than in open court, which makes it even harder to learn the outcome in time. They invoked the rule of law, legality, equality of rights, free access to justice and the use of remedies, that is Article 1(3) and (5), Article 16, Article 21 and Article 129 of the Constitution, read in the light of the right to an effective remedy under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court that referred the matter, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, considered the plea unfounded. The Public Ministry asked for the same. The presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, the Government and the Ombudsman did not submit their points of view.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is the most useful one in practice. The Court pointed out that Article 1000(1) is read together with Article 470(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure: where the time limit runs from a moment other than the service of the judgment, the grounds are submitted within a time limit of the same length, running from the actual service. So within the 5 days from delivery you file the appeal or the recurs, and you submit the grounds within another 5 days from receiving the written judgment.

The second effect is that the judgment reaches the parties anyway, without them asking for it. Under Article 427(1) of the same code, the judgment given in the interim injunction procedure is served ex officio, as soon as it has been drafted and signed, whether or not it was granted after summoning.

The third effect concerns the party that was summoned and did not follow up on the outcome. The Court said plainly that the lack of diligence of a summoned party who fails to bring the appeal under the conditions laid down by law is not a defect of unconstitutionality. In other words, a short time limit is not offset by passivity.

The fourth effect has to do with the logic of the procedure. The interim injunction is a fast track, through which the court takes provisional measures in urgent cases, on the basis of a prima facie case. A short time limit for challenging it is part of that construction, and the legislature is free, under Articles 126 and 129 of the Constitution, to lay down remedies with a shape different from the ordinary law.

The fifth effect is procedural. The decision is final and generally binding from publication, and the same criticism can no longer be brought before the Court. Challenges that relied on the time limit being too short are left without that argument.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In law, nothing changes. The Court found that no new elements had emerged compared with Decision no. 3 of 14 January 2016, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 170 of 7 March 2016, by which the same provisions had already been reviewed, again with a dismissal.

What the 2026 decision adds is the explicit extension of the reasoning to the recurs. Where an application for an interim injunction is heard at first instance by a court of appeal, the remedy is no longer the appeal but the recurs, under Article 1000(4). The Court said that the 2016 arguments remain valid there as well, so the rule of the 5-day time limit plus grounds submitted from service applies in identical terms.

A second new element is the age of the legislative solution, which the Court traces back to the Code of Civil Procedure of 1865. Article 582(1) of that code laid down the same 5-day time limit, calculated in the same way, and its constitutionality had been confirmed on several occasions, including by Decision no. 762 of 12 May 2009 and Decision no. 333 of 25 March 2010.

It is also worth noting what the Court did not examine. The reliance on Article 1(3) and (5) of the Constitution was considered purely formal, with no reasoning on the alleged breach. The Court recalled, citing Decision no. 785 of 16 June 2011 and Decision no. 1313 of 4 October 2011, that merely listing constitutional texts is not a genuine criticism, and that examining it anyway would amount to a review of its own motion, which it is not permitted to carry out. The reference to Article 10 of the Constitution was set aside outright: that text concerns Romania’s international relations, so it has nothing to do with the procedure.

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