In brief
- From 1 February 2027, anyone who wants a post in the prison police enrols exclusively through an online application of the National Administration of Penitentiaries, and the full medical examination is done only after he has been declared successful. Order of the Minister of Justice no. 1.987/C/2026 rewrites 31 of the 44 articles of the competition regulation approved in 2020 and five of the seven articles of the procedure for checking conduct. The paper file, lodged at the counter together with the documents in the original, disappears: what remains is the uploading of the documents into the application, and the originals are produced only by those who win a post.
- Who is concerned. Candidates from outside the system, called in the act „sursă externă”, external source, that is people who do not work in the prison service. Then the prison police officers already in post, called „sursă internă”, internal source: agents who want to move up into the officer category, officers who want a better execution post and those who stand for management posts, from head of service up to director general of the National Administration of Penitentiaries. Also concerned are the human resources and staff psychology structures, which keep the time limits, and the competition committees and the committees for settling challenges.
- The figures and the time limits that count. The competition announcement is still compulsory at least 45 calendar days before the first test, and enrolment lasts 15 working days. A challenge to the psychological test is lodged within one working day, against two in the form of 2020, while the institution keeps two working days in which to answer. The competition fee is paid within 3 working days, against 7 before. The results of the written test are published within at most 3 working days, against 5. The minimum pass mark stays at 7, 1 point is awarded automatically, and marking is done to two decimal places, without rounding. The order was signed on 22 September 2026, published seven days later, and enters into force 125 days from then, on 1 February 2027.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 826 of 29 September 2026, pages 10-15
In force from: 1 February 2027, a date set by Article IV of the order
Order of the Minister of Justice no. 1.987/C/2026 changes the rules by which one enters and advances in the prison police, and the direction is the same one other competitions in the administration have taken this autumn, starting with the competition for the leadership of the national research institutes, moved entirely online: enrolment, the scheduling of the tests, the challenges and the results move into an IT application, and paper is left only for those who win the post. The act amends the two annexes to Order of the Minister of Justice no. 3.065/C/2020, which has been in force for 2,244 days, that is for more than six years, without setting up a new regulation.
The order was signed in Bucharest on 22 September 2026 by Ioan Turc, state secretary, for the acting Minister of Justice, on the basis of Article 11(h), Article 15, Article 99(2) and Article 195 of Law no. 145/2019 on the statute of prison police officers. Unlike most ministerial orders, which take effect on publication, this one sets itself a later date: Article IV puts it off until 1 February 2027. The 125 days that remain are, in practice, the time in which the National Administration of Penitentiaries has to have the IT application working, because without it no competition can be organised any more under the letter of the new text.
Two notions run through the whole act and are worth clearing up from the start. „Agent” and „ofițer”, agent and officer, are the two grades of prison police officer, the first with upper secondary education, the second with higher education, and moving from one to the other is done only by competition. „Sursa externă”, external source, means a candidate from outside the system, „sursa internă”, internal source, means a prison police officer already in post, and the difference between the two decides what documents are required and what checks are made.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is that the competition file becomes electronic. Articles 5 and 22 of the regulation, rewritten in full, say that enrolment, the publication of the schedule of the tests, the publication of the results of each stage, the registration of challenges and the publication of the solutions to challenges are done through an IT application for enrolment and recruitment, available exclusively online on the website of the National Administration of Penitentiaries. Documents are uploaded, not lodged, and the application allots each candidate a unique identifier, under which the schedules and the marks appear. The duty to follow the whole process rests expressly with the candidate, so a piece of information he has not seen in time can no longer be invoked.
The second effect concerns candidates from outside the system and is the one with direct financial consequences. Until now, anyone enrolling from the external source had to complete the standard medical form at the doctor of the unit, that is the full medical examination, within 7 working days of the final results of the psychological test, so before knowing whether he would pass the tests. The new Article 23(8) moves that check after the publication of the final results of the competition and reserves it exclusively to candidates declared successful. What remains, instead, is a lighter requirement halfway along: on the day of the physical test, the candidate hands the committee a certificate from his family doctor attesting fitness for physical effort, valid and not older than 3 months. Anyone without it does not sit the test and is eliminated.
The third effect has to do with integrity. A new criterion is added to the procedure in Annex no. 2: the person must not have committed sexual offences, offences of exploiting persons or offences against minors. Proof is given by the behavioural integrity certificate, the document issued on the basis of the national register of persons convicted of such acts, which enters the list of papers the candidate lodges within at most 10 working days of the publication of the final results.
The fourth effect is more discreet and shifts the balance in the examination room. Through the new Article 32(6), the competition committee is given the power to annul badly worded questions and to award all candidates, of its own motion, the maximum marks attaching to them. The other way round, in the written test, a correction made otherwise than by striking through with a horizontal line no longer automatically draws annulment of the paper: the new Article 31(3) says that it „poate fi considerată”, may be regarded as, a distinctive mark, and that the chairman of the committee „are posibilitatea”, has the possibility, of annulling the paper. An automatic penalty thus becomes a discretionary decision, with no written criteria.
The fifth effect concerns the committees. In the competitions for the management posts at the top of the system, the same secretary may serve both committees, the competition one and the one for settling challenges. The chairman of the challenges committee in the other competitions may be the director general, a deputy director general, the head of the specialist structure, the director of a unit or a deputy director in the field of the post. And if, after a challenge has been settled, the ranking changes in such a way that the list of successful candidates changes, the committee re-marks of its own motion the papers of all candidates in that position.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The regulation of 2020, approved by Order of the Minister of Justice no. 3.065/C/2020 and published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 709 of 7 August 2020, assumed paper at every step: a file lodged with the human resources structure, copies produced together with the originals and certified on the spot, results displayed on the website and at the seat, challenges lodged or sent physically, with the date, the hour and the signature of whoever registers them. All these formulas have been replaced with uploading into the application and with publication through the application. The verb „se afișează”, is displayed, was changed systematically to „se publică”, is published, and the results are no longer „definitive” but „finale”, that is no longer definitive but final.
A clear gain for the candidate: in the checking of the file, the 2020 form gave him one working day merely to challenge the outcome. Articles 6(2) and 23(2), in the new form, allow him, within the same working day, also to complete the file, not only to complain about it. A file rejected for a missing document can therefore be saved.
A loss just as clear: a challenge to the psychological test was lodged, in 2020, within two working days of the result being displayed. The new Articles 6(6) and 23(6) cut the time limit to a single working day. The institution’s time limit for answering stays, by contrast, at two working days. From 2027 the candidate has half the time the committee has, on a test he can challenge only once.
The time limit for paying the fee has grown shorter too, but what matters more is that its starting point has moved. In 2020, the candidate from the external source paid the fee within the 7 working days running from the display of the final results of the psychological test, that is after the challenges had been settled. Article 24(2), in the new form, gives him 3 working days from the publication of the results, without the word „finale”, final, and adds an express penalty: anyone who does not prove payment is eliminated from the competition.
In the written test, the publication of the results has been speeded up from at most 5 working days to at most 3. Marking, which before said only that 1 point is awarded automatically, now gets a rule of precision: two decimal places, without rounding. And if a difference of more than 1 point appears between the mark given by the competition committee and the mark given by the challenges committee, a justification note is drawn up and filed with the competition file.
Two provisions from 2020 have disappeared without being replaced. The first is Article 42(1), which provided that, „în situația în care candidații nu au posibilitatea de a transmite documentele on-line, acestea se depun la structura de resurse umane”, that is, where candidates have no means of sending the documents online, they are lodged with the human resources structure. Article 42 has been rewritten completely and now deals with something else, the form by which a person may announce an intention to stand for posts regarded as understaffed. The safety valve for the candidate without access to the internet no longer exists anywhere in the regulation. The second is Article 5 of the procedure for checking conduct, repealed, which extended the checks to the two ways of being recruited without competition as well: the posting of graduates of the specialist schools and the transfer of military personnel and of police officers from other defence, public order and national security institutions.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The cost of entry falls for candidates from outside the system. The full medical examination, which meant days of leave, journeys and tests, is done after the post has been won, not before the first test.
- A file rejected for a missing document can be completed, not only challenged, within the working day the regulation gives.
- The calendar of the tests and the hourly schedule of the first test are now published at least 2 working days before the start. The regulation of 2020 required no notice at all.
- Badly worded questions can be annulled, with maximum marks for everybody, not only those which fall outside the syllabus.
- When a challenge that has been allowed changes the list of successful candidates, the committee re-marks of its own motion the papers of everybody affected, not only that of the person who brought the challenge.
- The new integrity criterion, checked through the behavioural integrity certificate, closes a gap in a profession that works with persons deprived of liberty, minors included.
What remains a problem
- There is no alternative route for enrolling. The application is „available exclusively online”, and the former Article 42(1), which allowed lodging at the counter for anyone unable to upload documents, has been deleted.
- The candidate’s time limits are shorter than the institution’s at every step where both have a clock. One working day for challenging the psychological test, two for the answer.
- The psychological test itself has no time limit at all. Everything else in the procedure has, and the fixed time limits eat up roughly 35 of the 45 calendar days between the announcement and the first test.
- Annulling the paper for a correction badly made becomes a decision of the chairman of the committee, with no published criteria and with no express route for challenging that decision itself.
- The justification note explaining a difference of more than 1 point between the two committees is filed with the file, and the documents in the file are confidential, apart from those published. The candidate whose result moved the most is not told why.
- About competitions under way on 1 February 2027 the text is silent, although it changes the very way the file is lodged.
Practical advice
- If you are preparing for a competition in the prison service, check first whether the announcement was published before or after 1 February 2027. The old rules and the new ones differ on the file, on the time limits and on the moment of the medical examination, and the act does not say which apply to a competition started before that date.
- Set a daily alarm on the website of the National Administration of Penitentiaries from the day you enrol. The regulation says expressly that the duty to follow the process is yours, and most of your own time limits are of a single working day.
- Get the certificate from your family doctor for physical effort ready in good time. It has to be valid and not older than 3 months on the day of the physical test, so one obtained at enrolment may expire before then. Without it you do not sit the test and you are out of the competition.
- If you are a candidate from outside the system and the result of the psychological test does not satisfy you, lodge the challenge on the first working day and, in parallel, pay the competition fee within the 3 working days. The text provides no restoration of the time limit for anyone who wins the challenge, and non-payment draws elimination.
- Check whether you have a behavioural integrity certificate before standing. It is issued by the police, on request, and you will have only 10 working days after the final results in which to lodge it, together with the medical form and the documents in the original.
- If you are already a prison police officer and are standing for promotion, ask in good time for the certificate attesting the posts you have held and the fulfilment of the seniority and performance rating conditions. In the electronic file it replaces the proofs you would otherwise produce at the counter.
- Write on the rough paper, not on the examination paper, and correct only with a horizontal line through the wrong word, line or paragraph. Any other form of correction can be read as a distinctive mark, and the decision to annul the paper belongs to the chairman of the committee.
Frequently asked questions
From when do the new rules apply?
What happens to a competition announced before 1 February 2027 but with its tests after that date?
Do I still have to complete the medical form before the competition?
How long do I have to challenge each stage?
What is the behavioural integrity certificate and where do I get it?
Can I enrol for two posts from the same announcement?
What mark do I need to be successful?
If the successful candidate withdraws, is the post lost?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article I point 18, which rewrites Article 24(2) of the regulation. The competition fee is paid „în termen de 3 zile lucrătoare de la publicarea rezultatelor la testarea psihologică”, within three working days of the publication of the results of the psychological test, and those who do not prove payment „sunt eliminați din concurs”, are eliminated from the competition. Through point 17, which rewrites Article 23, a challenge to those same results is lodged within one working day, and the solution comes within at most two working days of the expiry of the time limit for lodging, that is at the latest on the third working day. The candidate declared unfit who wins his challenge becomes „fit” on the very day the payment time limit expires, counted from the original publication, and no text reopens that time limit for him. The 2020 form avoided the trap: Article 24(2) and (3) tied payment to the display of the final results of the psychological test and gave 7 working days.
- Article II points 4, 5 and 6, which concern the procedure in Annex no. 2. In the 2020 form, Article 3(1) began with „Pentru candidații din sursă externă declarați «admis»”, for candidates from the external source declared successful, and Article 4(6) referred to „dosarul de încadrare al candidatului declarat «admis» la concurs”, the recruitment file of the candidate declared successful in the competition. Both qualifications disappear, and the record is now drawn up „for each candidate”, with no limitation at all. At the same time Article 5, which extended the procedure to recruitment without competition of graduates of the specialist schools and to the transfer of military personnel and of police officers from other institutions, that is to the ways provided for by Article 13(1)(a) and (c) of Law no. 145/2019, is repealed. It can no longer be established who falls under the rule: everybody enrolled, only those declared successful, or only those from the external source. And the two categories recruited without competition are left with no procedure for checking, although Article 11(h) of the law imposes on them the same condition as to conduct and refers precisely to a procedure approved by order of the Minister of Justice.
- Article I point 26, which introduces Article 32(6) of the regulation. The new text allows the questions to be annulled and the maximum marks to be awarded to all candidates where the questions „au fost greșit formulate sau excedează tematicii și bibliografiei de concurs”, were badly worded or go beyond the syllabus and the reading list of the competition. Article 33(4), unamended and therefore still in force, provides the same measure for questions which „au excedat tematicii sau bibliografiei”, went beyond the syllabus or the reading list. A question which falls outside the syllabus but is found in the reading list is covered by one text and is not covered by the other, and on the conjunction depends whether a candidate receives the maximum marks or not.
Editorial analysis
The order has a good intention and a hurried execution. The intention shows in the moving of the medical examination to after the final results: until now, a candidate from outside the system paid out of his own pocket for tests and journeys to the doctor of the unit before knowing whether he would pass the physical test, and if he failed, the money and the days were lost. From 1 February 2027, that cost is borne only by whoever has won the post. The hurried execution shows in the time limits. The regulation sets 15 working days for enrolment, 3 for checking the files, one each for completion and for settlement, one for the psychological challenge, two for the answer to it, three for paying the fee and at least two working days of notice for the first test. Laid out on a calendar, with those that run in parallel counted once, that comes to 25 working days, that is roughly 35 calendar days, out of a legal window of 45 calendar days between the announcement and the first test. About ten days are left for the one stage nobody has given a time limit to: scheduling and actually holding the psychological test, for all candidates, across the whole country. And Article 40 of the regulation extends any time limit falling on a non-working day, so a competition announced before a public holiday runs into deficit.
The second problem of substance is the asymmetry of the time limits. Everywhere both sides have a clock, the candidate’s clock runs faster. At the psychological test the difference is directly measurable: the candidate has one working day to challenge, the committee has two to answer. Until now both time limits were of two days each, so the order has cut half the candidate’s time and left the institution’s time untouched. At the end of the procedure the ratio is clearer still: the candidate declared successful has 10 working days for the medical form, the documents in the original and the integrity papers, while the administration has 30 working days, that is six weeks, in which to issue the appointment decision, with the possibility, kept from 2020 in Article 38(2), of exceeding even that time limit for duly justified reasons. What is more, Article 37(11) allows the Human Resources Management Directorate to ask for additional data also „în termen de cel mult 30 de zile lucrătoare”, within at most thirty working days, of the publication of the results, that is on the very day the appointment decision ought already to have been issued.
The third problem is the silence about the transition. The act has no transitional provisions, although it changes the very way the file is lodged and although the competition announcement is published compulsorily 45 calendar days before the first test, which guarantees that there will be competitions announced under the old regime and held under the new one. The precedent exists and is recent: when Government Emergency Ordinance no. 8/2020 rewrote these same competitions, Article II said without equivocation that procedures already begun do not continue but are started afresh, and that the fees of candidates who do not enrol again are refunded. At the same time a time limit of 30 days was given for adopting the regulation, a time limit exceeded by 153 days, because the act appeared only on 7 August 2020. That history is one more argument for the IT application to have a written deadline, not merely a date of entry into force.
Finally, an observation of legislative technique with a practical effect. The order rewrites two parallel articles which say the same thing, Article 9(2) and Article 27(1), but words them differently: in the first, a person may be „președinte sau membru al unei singure comisii”, chairman or member of a single committee; in the second, „președinte și membru al unei singure comisii/subcomisii”, chairman and member of a single committee or sub-committee. The 2020 form used „sau”, or, in both. Since on this depends whether the chairman of the competition committee may also sit on the committee that judges his own marks, the conjunction is no drafting detail.
What should be changed
- The time limit for paying the fee should run from the final results of the psychological test. A single word added to Article 24(2), „finale”, final, removes the situation in which a candidate who wins his challenge is eliminated over a fee he had no way of knowing he owed.
- The procedure for checking conduct should recover its scope. Either the qualification that it applies to those declared successful is put back into Article 3(1), or an implementing article is written to cover expressly the recruitment of graduates and the transfers, the categories left uncovered by the repeal of Article 5.
- The psychological test should be given a time limit. Without one, the single stage with no clock absorbs everything left of the 45 calendar days, and any delay translates into postponing the competition or compressing the stages that follow.
- The candidate’s time limits should be equal to the committee’s. Going back to two working days for a challenge to the psychological test takes one single day from the administration and gives the candidate back the minimum time needed to read a result and to frame a reasoned objection.
- There should be a fallback route for enrolling. The old Article 42(1) allowed lodging at the counter for anyone unable to send the documents online. Deleting it, in a competition open to people from outside the system as well, turns access to the internet into an unwritten condition of participation.
- Annulling a paper for distinctive marks should be given criteria. If the decision stays with the chairman of the committee, the text ought at least to require written reasons in the record and their communication to the candidate, otherwise the discretionary power cannot be checked by anybody.
- The justification note for differences of more than 1 point should be communicated to the candidate. It is the document explaining why his mark changed significantly between the two committees, and keeping it confidential empties of content the right to go to the administrative courts.
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. 826 of 29 September 2026, pages 10-15 16 pages PDF, 111 KB the act starts on page 10
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