In brief

  • The Constitutional Court has dismissed as inadmissible a challenge to Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the provision governing the procedure for challenging a document as forged in civil proceedings. The provision stands unchanged.
  • The reason for the dismissal has nothing to do with the substance of the question, but with the way it was put: the author listed eight articles of the Constitution without showing what it is about the provision that breaches them.
  • The decision explains what a plea of unconstitutionality must contain in order to be examined on the merits: the contested provision, the constitutional provision and the link between the two. Without the third element, the Court cannot rule.
Act: CCR Decision no. 54/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 559 of 8 July 2026
Delivered: 22 January 2026

Listing articles of the Constitution is not a complaint of unconstitutionality. The Constitutional Court repeated the point in Decision no. 54 of 22 January 2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 559 of 8 July 2026, dismissing as inadmissible the plea raised by a company from Galati against Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It is the same filter the Court has applied in other recent cases, alongside the decisions in which it has held, for instance, that it cannot complete the law in Parliament’s place.

The contested provision is the one describing the procedure for challenging a document as forged. Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure says that a party claiming that a document used in the proceedings is forged must do so no later than the first hearing after the document is produced, and must set out the grounds relied on. If the party using the document is absent, the court orders that party to appear in person, to produce the original and to give explanations. The judge may order the parties to appear even before the first hearing, if someone has stated in the defence that his signature has been forged, and in duly justified cases the parties may be represented by agents holding a special power of attorney.

Lorin, a company from Galati, raised the plea in two cases, one before the Galati Court of Appeal and one before the Galati Tribunal, both in administrative litigation, one of them concerning the disclosure of public interest information and non-pecuniary damages. The argument was that the provision is unconstitutional in so far as it allows arbitrary interpretation and application and, above all, in so far as it allows the judge „to persecute and discriminate against the parties”.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is that Article 304 remains in force, unamended and uninterpreted. A dismissal as inadmissible does not say the provision is constitutional; it says no complaint was formulated that the Court could examine. The procedure for challenging a document as forged continues to work exactly as written.

The second effect is practical and concerns anyone raising such a plea. The Court restates that a plea of unconstitutionality has three elements: the contested statutory provision, the constitutional provision said to be breached, and the reasoning showing the conflict between them. The first two can be established precisely. The third depends on the author, and if it is missing the Court cannot supply it, because that would amount to a review of its own motion, which is prohibited by Article 29(4) of Law No 47/1992. The requirement of reasoning is imposed expressly by Article 10(2) of the same law.

The rule was applied again in September 2026, in a pay case: the serviceman who invoked 35 articles of the Constitution and 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights lost without the 2008 ordinance being examined on the merits.

The third effect is a boundary of jurisdiction. The Court points out that dissatisfaction with the way a judge interprets and applies a provision is not a question of constitutionality. The way a competent court interprets a provision in law and orders its application is the exclusive preserve of the judicial courts. Anyone complaining that the law was wrongly applied in a particular case has the ordinary and extraordinary appeals available, not the plea of unconstitutionality.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In the wording of the law, nothing. Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure stands in the form the Court reproduces in the decision.

What is added is one more item in a line of decisions saying the same thing. The Court refers to Decision no. 1.313 of 4 October 2011, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 12 of 6 January 2012, where it set out the three elements of a plea, and to Decision no. 785 of 16 June 2011, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 646 of 9 September 2011, where it held that the mere listing of constitutional or Convention provisions cannot be regarded as a genuine complaint. It adds Decision no. 691 of 12 December 2023, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 456 of 17 May 2024, which qualifies the rule: if the reference text is precise enough for the Court reasonably to identify a minimum complaint, then it is obliged to rule on the merits. Here it took the view that this threshold was not reached.

The case statistics change as well. The two cases, no. 616D/2021 and no. 3.224D/2021, both brought by the same author and with the same object, were joined under Article 53(5) of Law No 47/1992 and settled by a single decision, unanimously.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It states expressly, with examples, what is missing from a plea dismissed as inadmissible. Anyone reading the decision learns what has to be written for a case to reach the merits.
  • It draws a clear line between jurisdictions: interpreting and applying the law in a particular case is the business of the judicial courts, not of the Constitutional Court.
  • It confirms that the threshold is not a quantitative one. The Court repeats that the sheer volume of reasoning is not a condition for a plea to exist, so a short but focused text is enough.
  • Joining the two identical cases spared a second hearing on the same question.

What remains a problem

  • The merits go unexamined. If Article 304 really did have a clarity problem, the decision says nothing about it, and the provision has not been tested.
  • The author of the plea waited years to learn that the referral had not been properly formulated, while the proceedings on the merits took their course.
  • Neither the presidents of the two chambers of Parliament, nor the Government, nor the Ombudsman sent observations, even though the law gives them that option.
  • The line between a „reasonable minimum complaint” and „formal listing” remains a case-by-case assessment, hard for a non-professional to anticipate.

Practical advice

  1. When you raise a plea of unconstitutionality, set out separately, point by point, the three elements: which statutory provision you are challenging, which article of the Constitution you consider breached, and exactly why the first breaches the second. The third point is the one usually missing.
  2. Do not list articles of the Constitution „just to be safe”. A long list without explanations does not improve your chances, it reduces them: the Court has held that mere listing is not a complaint.
  3. If your grievance is that the judge applied the law wrongly in your particular case, use the appeal against the judgment. A plea of unconstitutionality does not cover the manner of application, only the provision itself.
  4. If you want to challenge a document as forged in civil proceedings, keep in mind the time limit in Article 304: no later than the first hearing after the document is produced, together with the grounds relied on. After that moment, the procedure can no longer be started.
  5. If you have stated in your defence that your signature has been forged, the judge may order the parties to appear even before the first hearing. Have the original and your explanations ready in advance.

Frequently asked questions

What does it mean that the plea was dismissed as inadmissible?
That the Court did not examine whether the statutory provision is constitutional or not. It found that the referral did not meet the requirement of reasoning imposed by Article 10(2) of Law No 47/1992, so it could not be examined on the merits.
Was Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure declared constitutional?
No. A dismissal as inadmissible does not rule on constitutionality. The provision remains in force, but the question was not settled on the merits in this decision.
What are the three elements of a plea of unconstitutionality?
The contested statutory provision, the constitutional provision said to be breached, and the reasoning showing the conflict between the two. The first two can be determined precisely; the third depends on the author and is the one that was missing here.
How detailed does the reasoning have to be?
The Court says that the sheer volume of reasoning is not a condition for a plea to exist. If a minimum complaint of unconstitutionality can reasonably be identified from the text, the Court is obliged to rule on the merits. The problem arises when no complaint at all can be identified from the reasoning.
Why can the Court not work out the complaint for itself?
Because that would mean taking the place of the author of the plea and carrying out a review of its own motion, which Article 29(4) of Law No 47/1992 does not allow. The referral to the Court is ordered by the court before which the plea was raised, by an order setting out the parties’ positions and the court’s opinion.
What is the procedure for challenging a document as forged?
The procedure by which a party to civil proceedings states that a document used against it is forged, through falsification of the writing or of the signature. Article 304 of the Code of Civil Procedure sets the time limit within which it can be raised and the rules for conducting it.
Can I challenge the way the judge applied the law to me?
Yes, but through the remedies provided by law, not before the Constitutional Court. The Court states expressly that the legal interpretation of statutory provisions and their application are the exclusive preserve of the judicial courts.
Can the same plea be raised again?
Yes, because the merits were not settled. A fresh plea, this time reasoned on the specific relationship between the statutory provision and an article of the Constitution, could be examined on the merits.

Editorial analysis

The decision is useful not for what it decides but for what it shows. The Constitutional Court rarely publishes a manual on drafting a plea, and here, in three paragraphs, it has one: the three elements, the threshold at which a complaint becomes examinable, and the reason why the Court cannot fill the gap. For a lawyer, or for a party representing himself, paragraphs 16 and 17 are worth more than the outcome.

What is not visible on a first reading is what this clarification cost. The first court referred the matter by its order of 19 January 2021, the second by its order of 18 October 2021. The Court ruled on 22 January 2026, that is, 1,829 days after the first referral, more than five years. Another 167 days passed between delivery and publication. Five and a half years to find that the referral was not reasoned, in a case where the finding could have been made from the first document filed. The decisions the Court relies on as authority, no. 785/2011 and no. 1.313/2011, already existed at the date of the referral, published ten years earlier.

The second thing that stands out on comparison is the position of the referring courts. The Galati Court of Appeal took the view that the plea was unfounded and cited three earlier decisions on the merits. The Galati Tribunal, in the other case, pointed out that the author does not spell out how exactly the provision conflicts with the articles relied on, which is precisely the reason why the Court dismissed it five years later, as inadmissible. The correct diagnosis had been in the file since 2021, made by the very court that sent the plea on. The system has no mechanism for using it.

The third is the silence. Neither the presidents of the two chambers of Parliament, nor the Government, nor the Ombudsman sent observations. On a plea dismissed for want of reasoning, their absence does not change the outcome. Repeated from case to case, however, it turns a procedure designed to be adversarial into one in which the Court rules alone.

What should be changed

  • A fast admissibility filter, ahead of the examination on the merits. Where the only problem is a lack of reasoning, it is apparent from the referral order and the written submissions. A short procedure with a fixed deadline would give the answer in months rather than years, and would unblock the cases on the merits that are waiting.
  • Putting the referring court’s opinion to use. The Galati Tribunal identified the exact defect in 2021. Since Article 29(4) of Law No 47/1992 requires that opinion anyway, it could trigger the filter described above whenever it flags a lack of reasoning, instead of remaining just another item in the file.
  • A standard form for the plea of unconstitutionality. Three mandatory boxes, matching the three elements, would make the gap visible at the very moment of drafting. Anyone unable to fill in the third box would find out on the spot, not five years later.
  • Publication of an official guide from the Court on the requirement of reasoning. The criteria exist, but they are scattered across decisions from 2011, 2023 and 2026. Gathering them into a public text, with examples of reasoning accepted and rejected, would reduce the number of referrals lost on form.

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. 559 of 8 July 2026 16 pages PDF, 116 KB the act starts on page 2

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