Police risk compensation stays “up to 30%”: the Constitutional Court dismisses the union challenge

A police officer going into a high-risk operation has no right to 30% extra pay. The right is to “up to 30%”, and how much is actually paid is decided by the ministry. The Constitutional Court confirmed this arrangement in Decision no. 39 of 20 January 2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 585 of 16 July 2026, dismissing the pleas raised by the police union on behalf of its members, in cases pending before eleven courts across the country, tribunals and courts of appeal. It is the same logic the Court applied when it examined the risk bonus of veterinary doctors, likewise conditional on an administrative decision.

The central provision is Article 14 paragraph (1) of Annex no. VI to Framework Law no. 153/2017. It states that military personnel, police officers, public servants with special status in prisons and civilian staff who carry out special operations, guarding, protection and counter-terrorist control, operational surveillance, escort, intelligence gathering, investigations, actions and interventions or special criminal investigation acts receive risk or special danger compensation of “up to 30%”, calculated on the post pay, the position salary or the basic salary.

The union challenged precisely the phrase “up to”. The argument: if the law does not say how much is granted, only how much may be granted, the entitlement is no longer an entitlement but a promise whose extent is decided by the employer. To that was added the criticism of Article 23 of the same annex, which increases by 12.5% the post pay or the salary of staff employed in the central structures of the institutions in the defence, public order and national security system, but not that of staff in the territorial structures.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is that the ceiling stays a ceiling. The Court found that Article 14 paragraph (1) of Annex no. VI to Framework Law no. 153/2017 and Article 1 paragraph (5) of Law no. 285/2010 are constitutional in relation to the criticisms raised. The compensation continues to be granted at between zero and 30%.

The second effect concerns the level at which pay is regulated. The Court recalled that the pay system, whatever the professional category, is not among the areas reserved to organic law by Article 73 paragraph (3) of the Constitution. So it is not a constitutional problem that the details end up in acts of lower rank.

The third effect concerns a provision that no longer exists in the form criticised. Article 14 paragraph (5), which left to the order of the principal authorising officer not only the units, the categories of staff and the size of the compensation, but also the “conditions” and the “criteria” for granting it, had already been declared unconstitutional by Decision no. 294 of 17 May 2022. The reason at the time: rules whose effects depend on conditions and criteria whose nature cannot be anticipated do not meet the requirements of quality of the law. The plea was therefore dismissed as having become inadmissible.

The fourth effect is the most useful in practice. The Court stated expressly that, although the plea is dismissed as having become inadmissible, the earlier decision finding unconstitutionality may constitute a ground for revision of the judgment, under Article 509 paragraph (1) point 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, if the dispute was finally settled while the plea was pending before the Court. In practice, a case lost between 2020 and 2022 is not necessarily closed for good.

The fifth effect concerns the 2003 bonus. Article 21 of Government Ordinance no. 38/2003, which provided a bonus of up to 30% for high-risk missions, was repealed on 1 January 2010 by Framework Law no. 330/2009. Since the claims before the courts concerned later periods, the Court found that the provision had no connection with those proceedings and dismissed the plea as inadmissible. The reasoning also contains a general rule worth remembering: the fact that a legislative solution was taken over successively into later laws does not mean that the initial act applies or that it is still in force.

The sixth effect concerns the 12.5% increase. The criticisms of Article 23 of Annex no. VI in fact concerned the way the phrase “the central structures of the institutions” is interpreted and applied. Interpreting the rules under review is a matter for the courts, under Article 126 paragraph (1) of the Constitution, not for the Constitutional Court. The plea was dismissed as inadmissible.

The seventh effect is about an omission. As regards Article 38 paragraphs (2) and (3) of Framework Law no. 153/2017, which governs the application of the law over time between 1 July 2017 and 31 December 2018, the authors objected that the list does not also cover public servants with special status in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Court replied that pay policy belongs to the legislature and that it has no power to supplement a law. Inadmissible.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

For police pay entitlements, nothing. The decision sits on top of case law already formed: Decision no. 294 of 17 May 2022, Decision no. 429 of 29 September 2022, Decision no. 184 of 26 March 2024, Decision no. 62 of 25 February 2025 and Decision no. 144 of 27 March 2025. The same provisions, the same author of the plea, the same outcome.

What did change is the text of Article 14 paragraph (5) itself, but not through this decision. After the Court declared it unconstitutional in 2022, the Government rewrote it by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 168/2022, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 1186 of 9 December 2022. The current form is shorter: “The units, the categories of staff and the size of the compensation shall be established by order of the principal authorising officer.” The “conditions” and the “criteria” are gone, that is exactly the elements the Court had found unforeseeable.

The line the Court draws between the two paragraphs is worth remembering. The ceiling in paragraph (1), the formula “up to 30%”, is not in itself unconstitutional, because the legislature is free to set the limits of pay. What fell in 2022 was something else: paragraph (5) left to the administration both the conditions and the criteria for granting the compensation, with no one on the outside able to anticipate by what rules the figure comes down from the ceiling. Even after the December 2022 rewrite, the actual size of the compensation is still established by order, so the officer’s practical question, how much do I get and why that much, is still decided there.

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