In brief
- Anyone working in hard conditions at a workplace that does not appear in the annexes to the pensions law cannot ask a court to find special conditions itself, and the Constitutional Court has confirmed that the rule is constitutional. Decision no. 734 of 9 December 2025 was published on 23 September 2026 and is final and generally binding from that date. The plea was rejected unanimously.
- The employee loses, and the argument rejected is precisely the absence of a standing mechanism for reassessment. The Court answered that the legislature entrusted the assessment of working conditions to specialised administrative authorities, not to the courts, and that a reading to the contrary would mean putting the judge in the place of the legislature. The plea had been raised of the court’s own motion by the Mureș County Court, not by the employee.
- What is left to the employee runs through the administrative procedure, not through an action for a declaration. The employer applies for the workplace to be reassessed, and a refusal of the approval is challenged further on. The only judicial door the decision recognises is the reconstruction of the period worked in special conditions where the archives have been destroyed.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania no. 809 of 23 September 2026
In force from: the decision is generally binding from the date of publication, 23 September 2026
The Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the plea challenging the mechanism by which a workplace comes to be classified as involving special working conditions, that is the list of activities and of undertakings set out in the annexes to the pensions law. It is the second decision taken at the hearing of 9 December 2025 that closes a criticism resting on a binding interpretation of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, after the one by which the 15% increase for the complexity of the work remained ungranted for 2017 and 2018. What is at stake is among the most concrete matters in pensions law: a person working in special conditions retires earlier, with a reduction of the standard retirement age that can reach, cumulatively, up to 13 years, and the employer owes for him a social insurance contribution higher by 8 percentage points.
The plea has a feature that says a great deal about it: it started with the judge, not with the employee. It was raised of its own motion by the Mureș County Court, Civil Division, in an employment dispute, and the party Vasile Ioan Suceavă adopted it. The court referred it to the Constitutional Court by the interlocutory order of 15 July 2021, in case no. 1.964/102/2020/a1, and at the Constitutional Court the case received file number 2.930D/2021. The Presidents of the two Chambers of Parliament, the Government and the Ombudsman communicated no point of view.
The texts attacked form a chain stretching over fifteen years. Article 20(2) and (3) of Law no. 19/2000 says that workplaces involving special conditions other than those listed by the law may be established only by law, and that the methodology and the criteria for classification are approved by government decision. Article 1 and Article 2(2) of Law no. 226/2006 classify as involving special conditions, from 1 April 2001, the activities in Annex no. 1 carried out in the undertakings in Annex no. 2 that obtained the approval provided for in Government Decision no. 1.025/2003. Article 30(1)(e) of Law no. 263/2010 takes over the same construction, by reference to Annexes no. 2 and 3, while paragraphs (2) and (3) provide for periodic reassessment, every 5 years, under a procedure likewise laid down by government decision. Article II of Law no. 325/2015 closes the circle: an employer who has not obtained the approval again at reassessment owes the contribution for normal working conditions, since he no longer has any legal basis for classifying anyone as working in special conditions.
The criticisms were framed in so far as these texts exclude a finding that employees are entitled to be reclassified as working in special conditions where those conditions reappear after the approval has expired, against the background of the employer’s failure to comply with his obligation to bring working conditions back to normal. The grounds of the plea go further and describe avoidance behaviour: in order not to pay the higher contribution, employers claim to have brought conditions back to normal, stop applying for the approval to be extended, or set up new workplaces for which verification is no longer even possible. The grounds invoked were Article 1(3) to (5), Article 16(1), Article 21(1) and (2), Article 34(1), Article 41(1) and (2), Article 47(2) and Article 53 of the Constitution, plus Article 6(1) and Article 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Protocol no. 12 thereto.
The Court first found a fact that did not stop it from ruling: all the texts criticised are today repealed. Law no. 19/2000 and Law no. 226/2006 fell by Article 196(a) and (m) of Law no. 263/2010, and Law no. 263/2010 fell by Article 168(1)(a) of Law no. 360/2023 on the public pension system, which applies from 1 September 2024. Under Decision no. 766 of 15 June 2011, review may also cover provisions whose legal effects continue to be produced after they have ceased to be in force, so the analysis went on, on the form the texts had on the date of the referral.
What it changes in practice
The decision is final and generally binding from publication, that is from 23 September 2026. The basis is Article 147(4) of the Constitution, invoked in the operative part alongside Article 146(d). This is not a matter of the 3-day period from publication, which concerns laws and ordinances.
The first effect is felt by the case before the Mureș County Court. The employment dispute goes on with the texts left standing and with the interpretation the High Court gave them, and the employee can still put forward any defence on the facts, but he can no longer argue that the mechanism itself is unconstitutional.
The second effect concerns a category far wider than one case. Anyone working in conditions he considers special, without both his activity and his undertaking appearing in the annexes to the law, is left without the action for a declaration. The Court adopted the High Court’s interpretation in full: actions of this kind are not available where the cumulative conditions concerning the listing of the activity and of the employing undertaking in Annexes no. 1 and 2 to Law no. 226/2006 and, respectively, in Annexes no. 2 and 3 to Law no. 263/2010 are not met. The ordinary court cannot itself examine the working conditions and cannot carry out the classification.
The third effect is a map of what is left to be done, and it runs through the administration. The initiative belongs to the employer together with the representative trade union or with the employees’ representatives on the safety and health at work committee, the workplace is checked by the territorial labour inspectorates or by the National Commission for Nuclear Activities Control, the technical expert report is drawn up by specialised institutes, and the medical expert report by the public health institutes and directorates. The approval is given by a commission of its own, and if it is not granted a complaint may be made to the ministry of labour, whose decision is challenged before the courts. The courts also remain competent where the period worked in special conditions can no longer be proved because the archives have been destroyed.
The fourth effect shows up in money and in years. Without the classification, the period does not count towards the contribution period in special conditions, so it does not bring about the reduction of the standard retirement age, and the employer does not owe the higher contribution. That is exactly the consequence which Article II of Law no. 325/2015 spells out for employers who did not obtain the approval again at reassessment, and the Court held that the text does no more than confirm that, absent a risk established at reassessment, the rules on special conditions no longer apply. A decision rejecting a plea reopens no time limit and changes no pension already granted, just as happened in the case in which the second recalculation of the pension remained conditional on the reduced length of service recognised up to 31 December 2015.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
On the substance nothing changes, and that is precisely the news. A decision rejecting a plea leaves the texts where they were and confirms the interpretation that was already being applied. What changes is the standing of the argument: until 23 September 2026, a defence resting on the unconstitutionality of the mechanism was still available in pending proceedings, and from that date it is no longer, in relation to the criticisms formulated.
To see what has been left behind, it is worth following the road the decision itself describes. Law no. 19/2000 defined workplaces involving difficult working conditions and listed those involving special conditions, leaving open the naming of others by law, which led to Law no. 226/2006. Coming ten years later, Law no. 263/2010 took over both categories and drew up, in Article 30(1), a list the Court calls exhaustive. On top of the law came government decisions with cumulative criteria, which went beyond the type of activity and required the actual presence of the risk factors, the measures taken to remove them and the real effects on safety and health at work.
The second change, made ten years before this decision, concerns the pace of reassessment. In its initial form, Article 30(2) of Law no. 263/2010 required reassessment every 2 years. Law no. 325/2015, the source of the Article II criticised here, took the interval to 5 years. A workplace in which conditions deteriorate has since then gone more than twice as long as before without any official check.
The third change is the very disappearance of the framework examined. The repeal came on 1 September 2024, that is 464 days before the decision was delivered. Only Law no. 360/2023, which replaced it, keeps in Article 28(1)(e) exactly the same wording, the activities and undertakings set out in Annexes no. 2 and 3. The mechanism the Court confirmed did not leave the law in force along with the law that housed it.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It closes an uncertainty open for more than five years. Between the interlocutory order of 15 July 2021 and the publication of the decision, 1,896 days went by, that is 5 years, 2 months and 8 days, in which the case at Târgu Mureș was waiting for an answer.
- It sets out in a single text the whole administrative route to classification in special conditions, from who takes the initiative to who gives the approval and where a refusal is challenged. Anyone looking for it elsewhere has to put together three successive laws and two government decisions.
- It expressly confirms the only judicial door left open, the reconstruction of the period worked where the archives have been destroyed, and ties it to a precise text, Article 11(2) of Government Decision no. 1.025/2003.
- It says plainly where a grievance that is not of constitutional rank belongs. Failure to comply with the legal framework on working conditions is a question of the application of the law, not one for the constitutional court, and the employee learns this from the text of the decision itself.
- It reproduces in full the rules criticised, in the form they had on the date of the referral, so the decision can be used directly in old cases, without reconstructing the texts of laws repealed more than ten years ago.
What remains a problem
- The question put receives no direct answer. The criticism concerned the situation where hard conditions reappear after the approval has expired, while the reasoning answers about the division of powers between the courts and the administration, without touching the hypothesis of their reappearance.
- The ruling rests on a procedure that depends entirely on the employer. The one who ought to apply for the reassessment is the very one who pays a higher contribution if the reassessment comes out positive, and the decision does not discuss this conflict of interest, although the grounds of the plea describe it at length.
- Publication came 288 days after delivery, that is nine months and fourteen days. The ruling had existed since 9 December 2025, but it produced no effects, and the courts could not apply it.
- The reasoning is, for the most part, a quotation from the Court’s own decisions of 2017 and 2018. Paragraphs 20 to 28 repeat considerations already delivered, and paragraph 29 finds that no new elements have appeared, without checking whether the lengthening of the reassessment interval from 2 to 5 years, decided in 2015, is such an element.
- The new law is never mentioned. The Court finds that Law no. 263/2010 was repealed by Law no. 360/2023, but does not note that the new law keeps the same reference to the annexes, so it does not tell the reader whether or not its ruling carries over to the framework now in force.
- The text reproduced in paragraph 20 contains a repetition of some twenty words, in the list of classification criteria. The meaning remains a single one, but the sentence describing the criteria is hard to read precisely where it ought to be clearest.
Practical advice
- Check first whether both conditions are met, not just one. It is not enough for the activity to appear in an annex; the employing undertaking must be listed there too, with the approval obtained. The interpretation confirmed by the Court speaks of cumulative conditions, and a check done by halves leads to a dismissed action.
- Do not bring an action for a declaration of special conditions. That is exactly the route closed by Decision no. 12 of 23 May 2016 of the High Court, now confirmed as constitutional as well. The costs and the time lost are foreseeable from day one.
- Ask the employer in writing to start the reassessment procedure and keep proof of the request. The initiative belongs to the employer together with the representative trade union or with the employees’ representatives on the safety and health at work committee, and a refusal recorded in writing is useful later, in any other step you take.
- Use the inspection channel rather than the judicial one where working conditions have deteriorated. A complaint to the territorial labour inspectorate about the risk factors is the mechanism the decision itself describes, and its outcome can become the starting point of a reassessment.
- If the approval was applied for and refused, challenge the refusal, not the law. The complaint to the ministry of labour, and then the action against its decision, remain open and are the only ones that bear directly on the act you are missing.
- If the employer’s archives have been destroyed, say so expressly in your application and ask for the period to be reconstructed. That is the only situation in which the ordinary court can rule on the period worked in special conditions, and the basis is Article 11(2) of Government Decision no. 1.025/2003.
- If you are preparing a fresh plea on the same mechanism, build it on the text now in force, Article 28(1)(e) of Law no. 360/2023, and on the absence of any procedure for updating the annexes. The present decision covers only the criticisms formulated in that case and only the repealed texts.
Frequently asked questions
What did the Constitutional Court decide, in short?
Can I ask a court to find that I work in special conditions?
What does an employee without the classification actually lose?
From which day does the decision take effect?
Are the laws criticised still in force?
Who raised the plea and why does it matter?
How long did the procedure take?
How often are workplaces with special conditions reassessed?
Editorial analysis
The first observation does not show itself on a read of the decision, because it calls for opening the law that replaced the framework examined. At paragraph 15, the Court finds that all the texts criticised are repealed and that Law no. 263/2010 fell by Article 168(1)(a) of Law no. 360/2023. From there on, the new law does not appear again on a single line. Only Article 28(1)(e) of Law no. 360/2023 reproduces word for word the formula criticised, the activities and undertakings set out in Annexes no. 2 and 3, and the law applies from 1 September 2024, that is for 464 days as at the date of delivery. The practical difference is large: the reader is left with the impression that a historical problem has been tried, in a framework that has vanished, when in fact a mechanism has been confirmed that is working in 2026 too, in the same words, in a law the decision does not cite.
The second observation emerges from setting side by side two texts the decision cites separately, without ever confronting them. Article 30(2) of Law no. 263/2010 is reproduced in paragraph 15 in the form with reassessment every 5 years, and Article II of Law no. 325/2015 is reproduced immediately after. Nowhere is it said that the 5-year interval also comes from Law no. 325/2015, which doubled it from the 2 years in the law’s initial form. Yet the criticism in the case was exactly that: that there is no reassessment frequent enough to catch the hard conditions that reappear. The law whose Article II was attacked is also the one that thinned out the check, and the decision treats the two provisions as though they came from different places.
The third observation belongs to the administration’s calendar rather than the parties’, and it is obtained by calculation. Article 30(3) of Law no. 263/2010, reproduced in the decision, required the Government to lay down the reassessment procedure within 9 months of the law’s entry into force, that is by 1 October 2011. Government Decision no. 1.284/2011, on which Decision no. 14/2016 of the High Court rests and, through it, the present reasoning, was published on 29 December 2011, 89 days after the deadline. The procedure that followed it, Government Decision no. 924/2017, entered into force on 29 December 2017, that is exactly 6 years later, beyond the 5-year cycle the law imposed. The reasoning that tells the employee that assessment belongs to specialised administrative authorities therefore rests on a frequency the administration did not keep either.
The fourth observation concerns what is missing from the reasoning. The eight paragraphs of criticism describe a conflict of interest, not a grievance: the one who has to apply for the reassessment, the employer, is the very one who would pay more if the reassessment confirms special conditions, 8 percentage points above the ordinary contribution. The Court’s answer stays at the level of the division of powers between judge and administration, a theme it handles convincingly, and never touches the question of what happens when the administrative mechanism does not start, because the only person who can start it has no reason to do so. Paragraph 27 sends the problem to the application of the law, but this is not a matter of the law being wrongly applied; it is a procedure that, by construction, hangs on the will of the person obliged to pay.
Finally, two details that do not change the ruling but are worth stating for anyone citing the decision. The text reproduced in paragraph 20 repeats some twenty words from the list of criteria, a duplication visible in the printed edition too, not a loss in conversion; the meaning remains a single one, so we have not listed the observation as an erratum. And the two decisions of the High Court on which everything rests were delivered on the same day, 23 May 2016, but published eight days apart, Decision no. 14 on 2 November and Decision no. 12 on 10 November, so the one with the higher number became binding first.
What should be changed
- Law no. 360/2023 should provide a procedure for updating Annexes no. 2 and 3. Today the list can only be narrowed, through reassessment, never widened, for a workplace that appeared or deteriorated after the 2003 procedure was completed. A way into the annex, with the same technical and medical expert reports, would settle the very problem the Court said the courts cannot settle.
- Employees and the trade union should be able to start the reassessment themselves. As long as the initiative rests with the employer, the procedure depends on the person who pays the higher contribution. A right of direct referral, with an obligation on the commission to give a reasoned answer, would take the mechanism out of this circle without changing who carries out the expert assessment.
- The reassessment cycle should start automatically, not through a fresh government decision each time. The first procedure came 89 days beyond the statutory deadline, and the second 6 years after the first, although the law required 5. If the period ran from the law, with a standing procedure, the delay of a secondary act would no longer halt the check in practice.
- The interval between delivery and publication should be capped by an express rule. Here there were 288 days in which the ruling existed but produced no effects. A time limit written into Law no. 47/1992 would make predictable the moment at which the cases waiting for an answer can move on.
- An employer’s refusal to apply for reassessment should be a challengeable act, not a silence. Today a negative answer produces no legal effect, so there is nowhere to challenge it. An obligation to answer in writing, within a fixed period, would give the employee an act he could submit to review, in place of the action for a declaration that has been closed to him.
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. 809 of 23 September 2026, pages 3-7 8 pages PDF, 83 KB the act starts on page 3
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