Hazard allowance for veterinary staff still tied to 2022 salary level: Constitutional Court rejects challenge

The Constitutional Court has dismissed the challenge of unconstitutionality through which veterinary-sector staff sought to remove the condition tying the hazard allowance to the pay level set by the 2022 pay scale. Decision no. 59/2026, issued in January and published in the Official Gazette of Romania more than six months later, confirms the interpretation given by the High Court of Cassation and Justice in 2020 and closes a constitutional dispute brought by unions from Botoșani and Bucharest, who claimed discriminatory treatment between colleagues exposed to the same professional risks.

The case originated from complaints by veterinary doctors and sanitary-veterinary inspectors whose employer had refused them the allowance for harmful or hazardous working conditions, even though they worked under the same conditions, confirmed by risk assessment reports, as colleagues who did receive the allowance. The difference between the two categories had nothing to do with the actual risk at the workplace, but came down to a single administrative criterion: whether the base salary had reached the level set by law for 2022. The unions argued that this condition creates an artificial form of discrimination and asked the Constitutional Court to set aside the interpretation given by the supreme court.

The same distinction returned in 2026, over a supplement whose criteria sit in a classified order: the Court rejected that plea too.

What it changes in practice

For staff in veterinary and food-safety institutions (official veterinary doctors, staff of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority and of the county sanitary-veterinary directorates), the decision changes nothing in how the allowance is calculated: it continues to be granted only from the date when the base salary, rank pay or appointment allowance becomes equal to or higher than the level set by law for 2022. Those who have not yet reached that threshold remain without the hazard allowance, regardless of the actual working conditions certified by risk assessment reports.

The concrete effect is procedural: courts will now be able to dismiss, without a fresh review of the merits, any constitutional challenge raised on the same argument. This is the third time in the past three years that the Court has confirmed the same solution, after Decisions no. 98/2023 and no. 176/2024, which means claims for retroactive payment of the allowance remain strictly conditional on this salary criterion, whichever court hears them. The same line of case law, under which the Constitutional Court refuses to substitute itself for the legislature in matters of additional salary rights, also appears in the recent decision in which the Court upheld the old income thresholds for public legal aid.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

• Nothing in the text: Article 38 paragraphs (3), (4) and (6) of Framework Law no. 153/2017 remain unchanged, and the interpretation given by the High Court of Cassation and Justice through Decision no. 27/2020 remains applicable.
• An avenue of challenge is closed: the discrimination argument between employees with the same risk conditions but different base salaries can no longer be used as a constitutionality challenge in other cases.
• Case law confirmed: the Court reaffirms, referring to Decisions no. 98/2023, no. 176/2024 and no. 6/2025, that the legislature’s choice regarding the conditions for granting salary allowances cannot be reviewed on constitutional grounds.

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