In brief

  • The Constitutional Court has confirmed that the repeated suspension, year after year, of certain pay entitlements of staff paid from public funds was constitutional.
  • The case concerns provisions in four successive emergency ordinances, which postponed the application of those entitlements in 2017, 2018 and 2019-2021.
  • The Court also rejected the argument that an entitlement already repealed can no longer be suspended afterwards, pointing to its own case law.
Act: CCR Decision no. 101/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 700 of 24 August 2026
Delivered: 5 February 2026

The mechanism by which the state postponed, one year after another, the payment of certain public sector pay entitlements remains constitutional, even where those entitlements had already been struck out of the law. By Decision no. 101 of 5 February 2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 700 of 24 August 2026, the Constitutional Court dismissed as unfounded the objection raised by several people in a case pending before the Bucharest Court of Appeal, Eighth Division for administrative and tax disputes. It is one more confirmation of the limits the constitutional court sets on challenges to public sector pay, alongside the decisions on the recalculation of pensions.

Four provisions were challenged, all of them from emergency ordinances adopted in different years: Article 10(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 99/2016 on certain measures concerning the pay of staff paid from public funds, Article 1(3) of Emergency Ordinance no. 9/2017 on certain budgetary measures in 2017, Article 11(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2017 on certain fiscal and budgetary measures, and Article 41(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018.

All of them serve the same purpose: they postpone or suspend the application of pay entitlements for staff paid from public funds, from one year to the next. The people who raised the objection argued, in essence, that an entitlement repealed in the meantime by Framework Law no. 153/2017 on the pay of staff paid from public funds can no longer be the subject of a later suspension, and that the repeated extension breaches the principle of legal certainty.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is that the four provisions stay in place. The Court found them constitutional in relation to the criticisms made, so the courts can no longer refuse to apply them in pending disputes.

The second effect concerns the relationship between repeal and suspension. The Court referred to Decision no. 472 of 8 July 2021 and kept to the position that the mechanism of successive postponement does not become unconstitutional simply because the underlying provision has been repealed in the meantime.

The third effect has to do with the clarity of the law. The criticism based on Article 1(5) of the Constitution, on compliance with the law and the quality of legislation, was rejected. The Court held that no real difficulty can be identified in interpreting the provisions on the suspensive or repealing effect of legal rules, nor in establishing the principles that govern the application of the law over time.

The fourth effect concerns non-retroactivity. The Court found that provisions with similar content comply with Article 15(2) of the Constitution and held that the challenged provisions do not operate retroactively.

The fifth effect is procedural. The decision is final and generally binding, so the case before the Bucharest Court of Appeal and the other proceedings stayed on the same question can resume, without the challenged provisions being open to argument on that ground again.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Nothing changes in the content of the legislation. The four provisions remain as they were, with the effects they produced in 2017, in 2018 and over 2019-2021.

What changes is the certainty. A dispute that started from the idea that the successive suspensions were unconstitutional no longer has that argument available, and the courts carry on ruling on other grounds, if there are any.

The second change concerns the debate about repeal. The people who raised the objection argued that, once Framework Law no. 153/2017 had repealed the provisions of the earlier ordinances that set out certain entitlements, those entitlements could no longer be suspended in the following years, because they no longer existed. The Court examined the argument in the light of its own case law and rejected it.

The third change relates to the reading given by the supreme court. The decision recalls that, in the interpretation of the High Court, the intention of the legislature was not the one put forward by the authors of the objection, and the Constitutional Court adopted that reading as part of its own analysis.

What does not change is the right to a salary. The decision concerns the postponed application of ancillary entitlements, not the right to remuneration itself, guaranteed by Article 41 of the Constitution.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It unblocks the cases stayed while the Court was expected to answer this question.
  • It confirms a settled line of case law, referring back to a decision from 2021, so it does not create a new and unpredictable outcome.
  • It clarifies that the debate about the suspensive or repealing effect of legal rules does not raise a problem of legislative quality.
  • It restates that the challenged provisions do not operate retroactively, which puts an end to a series of claims based on Article 15(2) of the Constitution.

What remains a problem

  • The practice of successive postponement, from one year to the next, remains a permanent tool for deferring pay entitlements.
  • Staff paid from public funds are still left without an answer as to when the deferred entitlements are actually to apply.
  • The decision is published more than five years after the Court was seised, a period in which the provisions had already produced their full effects.
  • The reasoning rests largely on references to earlier case law, without a fresh analysis of the cumulative effect of the repeated postponements.

Practical advice

  1. If you have a case on this subject, check exactly which entitlement you are claiming and for which year. Each of the four provisions covers a different budget year.
  2. Do not build your claim on the argument that a repealed entitlement could no longer be suspended. The Court examined it and rejected it, and the decision is generally binding.
  3. Check whether your entitlement was set out in an ordinance later repealed by Framework Law no. 153/2017. That is the dividing line used in the analysis carried out by the Court.
  4. If the court stayed the proceedings pending the decision, ask for the case to be restored to the list. The decision has been published, so the reason for the stay is gone.
  5. Do not confuse postponement with abolition of the entitlement. Postponement defers the application of a rule without removing it from the legislation.
  6. If you want to follow the reasoning, read first Decision no. 472 of 8 July 2021, to which the present decision refers for its grounds.

Frequently asked questions

Which provisions were challenged?
Article 10(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 99/2016, Article 1(3) of Emergency Ordinance no. 9/2017, Article 11(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2017 and Article 41(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018.
What did the Court decide?
It dismissed the objection as unfounded and found that all four provisions are constitutional in relation to the criticisms made. The decision is final and generally binding.
What was the main argument of the challengers?
That a pay entitlement repealed by Framework Law no. 153/2017 could no longer be the subject of a later suspension, and that the repeated postponements affect legal certainty and the quality of the law.
Does postponing an entitlement mean the entitlement disappears?
No. Postponement defers the application of a rule for a set period, usually a budget year, without removing the rule from the legislation. Repeal, by contrast, eliminates the rule.
Do the challenged provisions operate retroactively?
No, according to the Court. It found that provisions with similar content comply with Article 15(2) of the Constitution and held that the challenged provisions do not operate retroactively.
What happens to pending cases?
They can resume. The courts carry on ruling, but can no longer refuse to apply the provisions declared constitutional by this decision.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Paragraph 20: four emergency ordinances are described as „legi anuale de salarizare”, annual pay laws. The text says that „dispozițiile de lege criticate fac parte din legi anuale de salarizare a personalului plătit din fonduri publice”, that the contested statutory provisions form part of annual laws on the pay of staff paid from public funds. The full titles of the four acts are reproduced five paragraphs earlier, in paragraph 12, and every one of them is a Government emergency ordinance, not a law. What is more, two of them have nothing to do with pay: Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2017 is „privind unele măsuri fiscal-bugetare”, on certain fiscal and budgetary measures, and Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 is „privind instituirea unor măsuri în domeniul investițiilor publice”, on the introduction of measures in the field of public investment. The difference is not one of vocabulary: whether a right is suspended by law or by emergency ordinance is itself a question of constitutionality, governed by Article 115 of the Constitution.
  • Paragraph 21 demolishes the premise on which paragraphs 20 and 27 rest. Paragraph 21 finds that Framework Law no. 284/2010 was repealed with effect from 1 July 2017 and that „noua reglementare nu conține nicio dispoziție similară celor din Legea-cadru nr. 284/2010, care instituiau ajutoarele și indemnizațiile”, that the new legislation contains no provision similar to those of Framework Law no. 284/2010 which created the allowances and the indemnities. In other words, after 1 July 2017 the entitlement no longer exists in the law. The decision nevertheless declares constitutional Article 11(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2017, which suspends the grant of those same allowances in 2018, and Article 41(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018, which suspends it in 2019 to 2021, without saying anywhere which entitlement the suspension operates on in those years. That is exactly the question put in paragraph 5, and the decision goes past it.
  • Paragraph 25 quotes, by way of an answer, a text that merely asks the question. The passage reproduced from High Court Decision no. 20 of 20 May 2019 says that „trebuie observat în ce măsură un act normativ ulterior (în speță, Ordonanța de urgență a Guvernului nr. 90/2017) poate suspenda drepturi care făceau obiect de reglementare al actului abrogat”, that it has to be examined how far a later act can suspend rights governed by the repealed act, and then that „rezolvarea chestiunii de drept sesizate nu presupune decât aplicarea corectă a regulilor referitoare la succesiunea legilor în timp”, that settling the point of law referred calls for nothing more than the correct application of the rules on the succession of laws over time. What the supreme court finds there is that the problem raises no difficulty of interpretation, which is why it does not resolve it. The Constitutional Court uses that passage as though it held the answer on the merits, although all it says is that the answer belongs to the judge hearing the case.

Editorial analysis

What is really at stake in the file is not the allowance payable on transfer to the reserve, but the technique by which the state keeps it in suspense. The four provisions confirmed cover, end to end, five years without a single day of interruption: 1 January to 28 February 2017 through Article 10(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 99/2016, 1 March to 31 December 2017 through the reference in Article 1(3) of Emergency Ordinance no. 9/2017, the year 2018 through Article 11(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2017, and the period 2019 to 2021 through Article 41(1) of Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018. Taken separately, each act is temporary. Together they form a permanent rule written in yearly instalments, and the Court validates each instalment without ever looking at their sum.

The second thing the act shows is how a pay dispute is settled when nobody wants to give the answer on the merits. The High Court, in Decision no. 20 of 20 May 2019, says that there is no difficulty of interpretation and leaves the question to the judge hearing the case. The Constitutional Court, in the present decision, says that there is no problem with the quality of the law and points back to the High Court. The judge hearing the case is left as the only one who has to explain how, in 2018 and in 2019, a right can be suspended which the same decision declares to have ceased to exist on 1 July 2017. That is all the claimant gets after eight years.

The third element is the interval. Case file no. 5.227/3/2018 was opened in 2018, the referral to the Court came through civil decision no. 7 of 1 March 2021, the ruling was delivered on 5 February 2026 and published on 24 August 2026. More than five years passed between the raising of the objection and the publication of the decision, and eight between the opening of the file and this moment. In all that time the last period of suspension, 2019 to 2021, has come to an end and the legislation has been replaced by other annual acts. In 2026 the Court is ruling on the constitutionality of rules that no longer have a living addressee, and the people who challenged them passed into the reserve long ago.

What can be said in the decision’s favour is that the solution on the merits is consistent. The Court applies, without inventing anything, the grounds of Decision no. 472 of 8 July 2021, naming the exact paragraphs, 58 to 63, 65 and 73, which allows anyone to check what has been taken over. Consistency does not make up for the absence of any analysis of the cumulative effect: nowhere in the twenty eight paragraphs is the question asked whether a suspension renewed five years running is still a suspension or becomes, in fact, the abolition of the right.

What should be changed

  • An express answer to the question put in paragraph 5. The decision ought to say, in a single sentence, which right the suspension in 2018 and in 2019 to 2021 operates on, if the rule that created it had been repealed on 1 July 2017. Without that sentence, the trial courts get a result rather than a line of reasoning, and the disputes carry on with the same arguments.
  • The correct name for the acts under examination. An emergency ordinance is not a law, and the difference carries constitutional consequences of its own. Paragraph 20 ought to say „ordonanțe de urgență”, emergency ordinances, as the titles reproduced in paragraph 12 do, because the present wording conceals precisely the route by which the suspension was carried out.
  • A limit on the renewal of budgetary suspensions. Law no. 24/2000 allows the application of an act to be suspended, but says nothing about how many times in a row that suspension may be renewed. A rule requiring, after the second extension, either that the right be brought back into application or that it be expressly repealed, would force the Government to say openly what it is doing, instead of reaching the same result through four successive acts.
  • Publication of a consolidated list of the suspension periods. Someone who has passed into the reserve has to open four emergency ordinances and a framework law today in order to find out whether he was entitled to the allowance in his own year. An updated annex, giving the period and the legal basis for every interval since 2011, would close a good part of the litigation before it starts.
  • A time limit for deciding objections that concern rules with a limited life. Where the contested text lasts for a single budget year, five years of waiting turn constitutional review into a retrospective exercise. Giving such files priority would have real effects on the disputes stayed throughout that time.

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. 700 of 24 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 114 KB the act starts on page 13

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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.