In brief

  • The money paid for doctors’ on-call hours remains a capped „element of remuneration”, not basic salary, and the Constitutional Court has confirmed that the rule is constitutional. In concrete terms, the amount is calculated under the provisions applicable for January 2018, that is, under a month 8 years and 7 months in the past, while the basic salary of the same doctor has risen several times since. Decision no. 591 of 11 November 2025 was published on 24 September 2026 and is generally binding from that date, adopted unanimously.
  • The loser is the Independent Doctors’ Union of Maramureș, which has carried the same question in at least four cases. The argument rejected is the one based on discrimination: a doctor employed by the hospital receives for on-call duty a capped element of remuneration, while a doctor with no contract for the basic working norm would receive, in the union’s submission, a genuine basic salary. The answer was that the construction given by the supreme court draws no distinction between the two categories, so there is no difference in treatment.
  • What is left to watch turns on another text, adopted in the meantime. Since 1 August 2023, specialist and senior specialist doctors who take on-call duty outside their basic working norm also receive a monthly allowance of 500 lei for one duty and 1,000 lei for at least two. The sum does not rise beyond two duties, so the value per duty falls to 250 lei at four duties and to 200 lei at five.
Act: Decision of the Constitutional Court no. 591 of 11 November 2025 on the plea of unconstitutionality of the provisions of Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 and of Article 38(3)(h) of Framework Law no. 153/2017, in the construction given by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Panel for the Resolution of Points of Law, by Decision no. 59 of 28 September 2020
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 815 of 24 September 2026
In force from: the decision is generally binding from the date of publication, 24 September 2026

The Constitutional Court rejected as unfounded the plea raised by the Independent Doctors’ Union of Maramureș, on behalf of its members Lucia Oșan and others, and held that the capping of salary rights for on-call hours is constitutional in relation to the criticisms put forward. It is the second confirmation of the same mechanism within a few months, after the one in which the constitutional court held that capping public sector allowances at the December 2018 level remains constitutional. The difference is that what is at stake here is not some allowance or other, but the pay for night and weekend work in hospitals.

The mechanism has two parts. The first is Article 38(3)(h) of Framework Law no. 153/2017 on the uniform remuneration of staff paid from public funds, which provided that, from March until 31 December 2018, the salary rights for work performed on the on-call rota, together with the shift allowance, the allowance for weekly rest days and public holidays and the night-work allowance, are to be determined in accordance with the legal provisions applicable for January 2018. The second is Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 1116 of 29 December 2018, which took the cap over and carried it further: the amount of the allowances, indemnities, compensations, bonuses and of the other elements of the remuneration system that form part of the gross monthly salary is to be maintained at no more than the level of the reference month, for as long as the member of staff holds the same post and works in the same conditions.

The part that tied them together is Decision no. 59 of 28 September 2020 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Panel for the Resolution of Points of Law, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 30 of 12 January 2021. The supreme court held that the salary rights for on-call duty performed by doctors outside the legal working norm, under a part-time individual employment contract, fall within the category of elements of the remuneration system that form part of the gross monthly salary. The consequence is that the cap applies to them: from 1 January 2019, their amount is maintained at no more than the level granted for December 2018, itself determined under the rules of January 2018.

The plea was built on Articles 16, 41, 44 and 53 of the Constitution and on Article 1 of the First Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The criticism on the merits was one of difference in treatment: for a doctor who has a contract with the hospital and for the basic working norm, the payment for on-call duty would be a capped element of remuneration, while for a doctor with no such contract, who takes only on-call duty, the same payment would be basic salary, calculated at the current level, by post, professional grade and seniority. Two doctors working the same on-call duty, in the same hospital, with the same grade, would be paid differently. In support of that criticism, the union also invoked Article 5(4) of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017, under which the value of on-call duty performed outside the legal norm forms part of the sum of the basic salaries.

The main proceedings are a claim for monetary rights, before the Maramureș County Court, First Civil Division, under no. 1.384/100/2020. The court referred the matter to the Constitutional Court by the interlocutory order of 19 March 2021, and before the Court the case was given file number 1.216D/2021. Neither the presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, nor the Government, nor the Ombudsman sent points of view.

The constitutional court took over in full the solution and the grounds of Decision no. 281 of 29 May 2025, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 1021 of 4 November 2025. It checked, in two steps, first whether the supreme court had genuinely construed the law rather than added to it, and then whether the rule as so read accords with the Constitution. At the first step it answered that the legislature itself had drawn a clear distinction between basic salary and payment for on-call duty, because Article 38(3)(a) and (b) raised the basic salaries of doctors and nurses from 1 January 2018, while letter (h) froze the payment for on-call duty at the rules of January 2018. At the second step it held that the construction draws no distinction between doctors employed by the hospital and those who are not, so Article 16 is not breached, and that payment for on-call duty is a right of a hybrid nature: it is not basic salary, but it forms part of the sum of the basic salaries.

What it changes in practice

The decision is final and generally binding from 24 September 2026, the date of publication in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 815. Article 147(4) of the Constitution ties binding force to publication, and between delivery and publication 317 days passed.

The first effect is felt by the cases brought by doctors for differences in on-call pay. The constitutional argument of discrimination is closed, and the construction given by the supreme court remains binding. What can still be argued in court is the concrete amount: what level was in fact granted in the reference month, whether the doctor held the same post and worked in the same conditions, two requirements written into the text of the cap itself, and whether the hospital applied the hourly rate correctly.

The second effect falls on those who have no contract with the hospital for the basic working norm. The Court said expressly that for them too the payment for on-call duty does not come within the notion of basic salary, not even where there is a part-time individual employment contract for work on the on-call rota. The reference to basic salary in Article 3(5) of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017 serves, according to the decision, only to set the hourly rate. The hope that the status of outside collaborator brings a better regime is closed off here.

The third effect concerns hospital budgets and authorising officers. Article 34(3) of the same ordinance makes them liable, under the conditions laid down by law, for setting the level of allowances in compliance with the cap. After this decision, a hospital that paid on-call duty at the level of the current basic salary, relying on Article 5(4) of the annex, no longer has any constitutional support for such a reading.

The fourth effect concerns what was left untouched. The decision says nothing about the monthly allowance introduced, from 1 August 2023, by Article 31 of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017, a text added by Article I of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 63/2023, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 603 of 30 June 2023. That allowance is granted on top of the payment for on-call duty and was not in issue, so it remains a separate right, with rules of its own.

The fifth effect can be read by comparison with a decision delivered at the same sitting. On 11 November 2025, with the same panel of eight judges and the same assistant magistrate, the Court also gave Decision no. 589/2025, published on 24 September 2026 as well, confirming the rule under which public sector staff were re-graded on the basis of their position in December 2009. The two cases share a mechanism: a calendar month chosen more than a decade ago goes on deciding how much an employee or a pensioner in the public system receives today.

The sixth effect is the limit of the outcome. The texts are constitutional „in relation to the criticisms put forward”, and the criticisms were built on Articles 16, 41, 44 and 53 of the Constitution and on Article 1 of the First Additional Protocol. A fresh criticism, raised on other grounds, is not closed off by this decision.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In the text of the laws nothing has changed: no provision has been repealed, rewritten or qualified by a reservation of construction. What has changed is the fate of a series of cases and, above all, the consolidation of a regime the law had announced as temporary.

Letter (h) of Article 38(3) was not in Framework Law no. 153/2017 when it was published, in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 492 of 28 June 2017. It was added on 8 December 2017, by point 12 of the sole article of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 91/2017, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 978, that is, 163 days after the framework law and three weeks before the salary increases of 2018 began to apply. The window the text set for itself was 306 days, from 1 March to 31 December 2018.

Since then, the cap has been extended year by year, by acts of the Government. Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 carried it into 2019, at the level of December 2018. The same paragraph was amended on 9 January 2020, by point 12 of Article I of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 1/2020, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 11, and the new wording speaks of January 2020 and of the level of December 2019. Article I(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 226/2020 covered 2021, at the level of December 2020, and Article I(5) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 130/2021 covered 2022, at the level of December 2021. Five successive acts, all of them emergency ordinances, for a measure presented at the outset as lasting ten months.

The second real change came from a direction other than the litigation. Since 1 August 2023, Article 31 of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017 has granted a gross monthly allowance: 500 lei for specialist and senior specialist doctors who take one on-call duty a month outside the basic legal norm, 1,000 lei for those who take at least two, 500 lei for biologists, chemists and biochemists with at least two duties, 500 lei for nurses and equivalent categories and 100 lei for each day worked on weekly rest days and public holidays, but no more than 300 lei a month. The Court cited that text as an argument, showing that the legislature had thereby confirmed its intention to treat payment for on-call duty separately from basic salary.

What has not changed is the link between payment for on-call duty and a calendar month in 2018. A doctor going on call in 2026 is paid for those hours under rules fixed 8 years and 7 months earlier, while his basic salary has been through every stage of Framework Law no. 153/2017.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It closes a case that had been waiting for 2,015 days, that is, 5 years, 6 months and 5 days, from the referral order to publication. The proceedings before the Maramureș County Court can move on.
  • It clarifies the legal nature of payment for on-call duty, on ground that had produced conflicting outcomes. It is not basic salary, but it forms part of the sum of the basic salaries, and the Court calls that regime a right of a hybrid nature.
  • It removes a supposed inequality. It confirms that the cap applies in the same way to doctors employed by the hospital and to those who take only on-call duty, so the second category cannot claim better treatment either.
  • It reproduces in full both contested texts and the operative part of Decision no. 59/2020 of the supreme court, so it can be used directly in old cases, without reconstructing the wording of the law as it stood at the material time.
  • It brings into the discussion the allowance under Article 31, in force since 1 August 2023, which many on-call pay cases overlook. Anyone reading the decision learns that, on top of the capped payment, there is a distinct monthly right.

What remains a problem

  • A measure announced for ten months has been extended by five successive acts, all of them emergency ordinances, and has reached a decade. The decision notes the legislature’s margin of appreciation, but does not ask whether a transitional rule extended indefinitely is still transitional.
  • Publication came 317 days after delivery. The outcome existed from 11 November 2025, but produced no effects, and the courts could not apply it.
  • The reasoning does not answer the union’s most concrete argument, the one about compulsory on-call duty, performed to make up the legal working norm. The criticism showed that, for those duties, the cap creates two levels of basic salary within one and the same legal norm.
  • The decision takes over the grounds of a judgment published seven days before delivery. Decision no. 281/2025, relied on as settled case-law, cannot yet be set against any experience of its application.
  • The 2023 allowance does not rise beyond two duties a month. At 500 lei per duty, the cap of 1,000 lei brings the value per duty down to 333 lei at three duties, to 250 lei at four and to 200 lei at five, meaning that the doctor who goes on call most often is the least rewarded per duty.
  • The same provision, Article 34(2), has produced five referrals to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the last of them published 20 days before this decision was delivered. That is not the mark of a clear text.

Practical advice

  1. If you have a case pending for differences in on-call pay, move your case off discrimination and onto the amount. Ask your employer for the level actually granted in the reference month and check whether the hourly rate was correctly calculated from the basic salary of the time.
  2. Check the two conditions written into the cap: the same post and the same working conditions. If you have been promoted, changed professional grade or moved into another structure, the cap no longer applies in the same way, and that is proved with your personnel records.
  3. Claim separately the monthly allowance under Article 31 of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017, if you have taken on-call duty outside the basic norm since August 2023. It is granted on top of the payment for on-call duty and is not affected by this decision.
  4. Count your duties per month before you agree to the rota. The allowance reaches 1,000 lei at two duties and rises no further, so the third and any further duty in the same month bring nothing extra under that head.
  5. If you work on a weekly rest day or on a public holiday, check the 100 lei for each day worked, with the monthly cap of 300 lei. Those sums are claimed by the day, not by the month, and the record of them is kept in the collective attendance record.
  6. Do not build a fresh claim on Article 5(4) of Chapter II of Annex no. II, under which the value of on-call duty forms part of the sum of the basic salaries. The Court held that this text does not turn payment for on-call duty into basic salary.
  7. If you are preparing a new plea of unconstitutionality on these texts, use constitutional grounds other than Articles 16, 41, 44 and 53. The operative part covers only the criticisms put forward, and those four articles have already been examined.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Constitutional Court decide, in short?
It rejected the plea as unfounded and held that Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 and Article 38(3)(h) of Framework Law no. 153/2017, in the construction given by the High Court of Cassation and Justice by Decision no. 59 of 28 September 2020, are constitutional in relation to the criticisms put forward. The outcome was reached unanimously.
How is on-call duty paid in practice?
As a capped element of remuneration, not as basic salary. The hourly rate is set from the basic salary, but the resulting amount is maintained at no more than the level of the cap’s reference month, determined under the provisions applicable for January 2018. Later increases in the basic salary do not carry across automatically to the payment for on-call duty.
Is there any difference between a doctor employed by the hospital and one who takes only on-call duty?
No, according to the decision. The Court held that the construction given by the supreme court establishes no distinction of legal nature or of remuneration between the two categories, and that the reference to basic salary, for doctors with no contract with the health unit, serves only to set the hourly rate.
Am I entitled to any additional sum for on-call duty?
Yes, since 1 August 2023, under Article 31 of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017: 500 lei gross a month for specialist and senior specialist doctors who take one on-call duty outside the basic legal norm and 1,000 lei for those who take at least two, 500 lei for biologists, chemists and biochemists with at least two duties, 500 lei for nurses and equivalent categories, plus 100 lei for each day worked on a weekly rest day or a public holiday, up to 300 lei a month.
Is it worth taking more than two on-call duties a month?
For the 2023 allowance, it brings nothing extra: the sum stops at 1,000 lei from the second duty on. Measured against the number of duties, the value per duty falls from 500 lei at two duties to 333 lei at three, 250 lei at four and 200 lei at five. The payment for the on-call duty itself, however, is made by hours worked and rises with each duty.
From what day does the decision produce effects?
From 24 September 2026, the date of publication in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 815. Article 147(4) of the Constitution ties the generally binding force of the Court’s decisions to the moment of publication, not to that of delivery.
How long did the procedure take?
The Maramureș County Court referred the matter to the Constitutional Court by the interlocutory order of 19 March 2021, and the decision was delivered on 11 November 2025, that is, after 1,698 days. A further 317 days passed before publication. In all, 2,015 days, that is, 5 years, 6 months and 5 days. The main case bears a number from 2020.
Can the cap still be challenged?
The merits are closed for criticisms based on Articles 16, 41, 44 and 53 of the Constitution and on Article 1 of the First Additional Protocol to the Convention. A plea built on other grounds remains possible, because the prohibition in Law no. 47/1992 concerns only texts already found unconstitutional.

Editorial analysis

The first observation cannot be seen by reading the decision, because it calls for opening the legislative history. The Court treats the cap as a choice of the legislature, falling within its margin of appreciation, and relates it to Framework Law no. 153/2017, published on 28 June 2017. Letter (h) was not in that law. It was introduced on 8 December 2017, by point 12 of the sole article of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 91/2017, that is, 163 days after the framework law was published. The extensions then came by the same route: Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 for 2019, Government Emergency Ordinance no. 1/2020 for 2020, Government Emergency Ordinance no. 226/2020 for 2021 and Government Emergency Ordinance no. 130/2021 for 2022. Five acts, not one of them a law passed by Parliament. The reasoning speaks of the right and the duty of the legislature to lay down the remuneration system, but the text confirmed was not written by the legislature the reasoning refers to.

The second observation concerns a mismatch of calendars between the rule quoted and the construction upheld. The decision reproduces Article 34(2) in its current form, the one that speaks of January 2020 and of the level granted for December 2019. That form has been in force since 9 January 2020, when it was amended by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 1/2020. The construction the Court subjects to review, the one in Decision no. 59/2020 of the supreme court, is however built on the earlier form: it says that, from 1 January 2019, the amount is maintained at no more than the level granted for December 2018. The two can be reconciled, because each version applies to its own period, and the decision also reproduces in full the operative part of the supreme court’s ruling. We have not put the observation in the errata, because a reader in good faith does not arrive at two different legal conclusions. What remains is that the paragraph quoting the rule and the paragraph quoting the construction speak of different years, and nothing in the reasoning explains why.

The third observation emerges from counting the referrals this paragraph has produced. Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2018 has reached the High Court of Cassation and Justice five times, by way of the resolution of points of law: Decision no. 59/2020, published on 12 January 2021, and Decision no. 7/2021, published on 9 March 2021, both upholding the referrals, then Decisions no. 50/2025, no. 181/2025 and no. 320/2025, rejecting them, published on 19 May, 16 July and 22 October 2025. The last appeared 20 days before the decision here was delivered. A text whose application calls for five interventions by the supreme court in five years can no longer be described simply as a clear choice of pay policy, and the Court does not comment on the series.

The fourth observation concerns the argument left unanswered. The union’s criticism covered three distinct situations, not one. The first is that of the doctor with a contract for the basic working norm as against the doctor without one. The second, which does not appear at all in the Court’s reasoning, concerns compulsory on-call duty, that is, duty performed to make up the legal working norm, provided for in Article 5(2) of Chapter II of Annex no. II to Framework Law no. 153/2017. The argument was that, if all rights arising from the on-call rota are capped elements, then two levels of pay appear within the legal working norm itself: one for ordinary hours, at the current basic salary, the other for compulsory on-call hours, at the January 2018 level. The reasoning takes over from the supreme court the idea that on-call work always has the same legal nature, whenever it is performed, but does not return to the consequence for the calculation that the union drew from it.

The fifth observation is a figure recalculated, on the only right that has risen over this period. The allowance under Article 31, in force since 1 August 2023, is 500 lei for one duty a month and 1,000 lei for at least two, with no further step above that. Accordingly, the value per duty is 500 lei at one duty, 500 lei at two, 333 lei at three, 250 lei at four and 200 lei at five. The marginal gain for the third duty and for each one after it is zero. In a system where the on-call rotas are covered precisely by the doctors who take several duties a month, the incentive works the other way round.

Finally, an observation about the source of the solution. The grounds are taken over from Decision no. 281 of 29 May 2025, presented as the case-law on the matter. That decision was published on 4 November 2025, that is, 159 days after delivery and 7 days before the decision here was delivered. It too was brought by the Independent Doctors’ Union of Maramureș, in another three cases, from the Cluj Court of Appeal and the Maramureș County Court. The same organisation has therefore carried the same question in at least four cases, and the second rejection rests on the first, which had become binding a week earlier.

What should be changed

  • The cap should have a closing date written into the law, not a yearly extension by emergency ordinance. Today a doctor cannot find out from any rule how long his on-call pay will stay frozen, because the answer comes every December, in a fresh act. A fixed horizon would make income predictable and would shorten the argument in the courts.
  • The law should say expressly how compulsory on-call duty is paid, the duty that makes up the legal working norm. That is the point neither the supreme court nor the Constitutional Court settles, and it decides whether there is one level of pay or two within the same legal norm. One sentence in Article 5 of Chapter II of Annex no. II would close the question.
  • The allowance under Article 31 should rise with each duty, instead of stopping at two. As it stands, a doctor with five duties a month receives 200 lei per duty, while one with two receives 500 lei. Payment per duty, even at a lower unit rate, would tie the allowance to the actual effort and would help hospitals that cannot cover their on-call rotas.
  • Article 34(2) should be rewritten with a single reference month, updated once, instead of the succession of months in the yearly ordinances. As it looks now, the amount is determined from December 2019, which points to December 2018, which points to January 2018. Three levels of reference for a single sum produce calculation errors in every hospital.
  • The interval between delivery and publication should be capped by an express rule. Here there were 317 days, and in the decision this one cites, 159 days. A period written into Law no. 47/1992 would stop the situation in which a decision becomes binding a week before it is used as a precedent in another case.
  • The part-time individual employment contract for the on-call rota should state the payment regime expressly. The criticism rested on the very clause in the contract, which ties the rights to the gross monthly basic salary, adjusted in line with legislative changes. If the cap applies anyway, the clause is misleading and should be reworded in the model contract.

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. 815 of 24 September 2026, pages 2-7 8 pages PDF, 83 KB the act starts on page 2

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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.