In brief

  • The Constitutional Court dismissed the plea as unfounded. Nothing changes for drivers: Article 102(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002 stays in force exactly as the High Court reads it in Decision no. 5/2021.
  • In practice, the judge hearing the challenge against the traffic ticket cannot shorten and cannot lift the 90 days of suspension of the right to drive. The only way they fall away is the annulment of the ticket, and when that happens the fine falls away with them.
  • The decision was delivered on 4 December 2025 and published on 9 September 2026, 279 days later, by a majority of votes and with no dissenting opinion published alongside it.
Act: CCR Decision no. 705/2025
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 765 of 9 September 2026
In force from: 9 September 2026, the date of publication

A woman driver from Hunedoara, penalised for driving after she had been drinking, asked the Constitutional Court to reopen a door the High Court had closed: the judge’s power to shorten the 90 days of licence suspension. The Court refused. Decision no. 705 of 4 December 2025, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 765 of 9 September 2026, dismisses as unfounded the plea of unconstitutionality raised against Article 102(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002 on road traffic, in the interpretation given by Decision no. 5 of 12 April 2021 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Panel for Appeals in the Interest of the Law. It is the third time in six weeks that the same answer reaches the Official Gazette of Romania, after Decision no. 165/2026, published on 19 August 2026 and also concerned with the fixed 90-day period.

The text at issue is short and applies every day. Article 102(3) says that certain acts are punished with the fine in class IV of sanctions, that is between 9 and 20 fine points, and, on top of it, with the suspension of the right to drive for 90 days. In the form that resulted after Government Ordinance no. 1/2022, the paragraph covers: driving under the influence of alcohol, where the act is not a criminal offence; driving a vehicle with dangerous defects to the brakes or to the steering; exceeding by more than 50 km/h the maximum speed permitted on the stretch of road concerned; holding, fitting or using flashing beacons and sirens on vehicles that have no right to them; breaching the rules on right of way or on overtaking, where an accident with material damage only has resulted; and driving without justification on the emergency lane of a motorway. The last two are the 2022 additions, made at the same time as failure to stop at a level crossing with the barriers down was moved into a new paragraph, where the suspension rises to 120 days. The suspension is not an option for the officer: it goes with the fine automatically, and its length is fixed by law.

A binding interpretation was laid over this text in 2021. Through Decision no. 5 of 12 April 2021, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 608 of 18 June 2021, the High Court allowed an appeal in the interest of the law brought by the governing board of the Constanța Court of Appeal and held that the court hearing the challenge against a traffic ticket which imposed the temporary suspension of the right to drive „has no possibility of examining whether that additional penalty is proportionate”. The reason given by the supreme court is that the length is laid down as a fixed amount, of 30, 60 or 90 days, and that neither the officer who issues the ticket nor the judge has any margin of appreciation. The judge may remove the additional penalty only by annulling the ticket, and not when the fine is upheld or replaced with a warning.

The case started from a challenge against a traffic ticket heard by the Hunedoara Tribunal, Second Section for civil, administrative and tax litigation, against a ticket drawn up for the act in Article 102(3)(a), that is for drink-driving below the criminal threshold. The author of the plea argued that the supreme court’s interpretation deprives her of access to a judge who can weigh the penalty, and relied on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, according to which measures affecting the right to drive are, by their severity, close to a criminal punishment. Her central argument was a comparison: Article 104 of the Ordinance allows the penalty to be adjusted by administrative means, at the request of the licence holder, while the judge is refused any examination at all. Even the Hunedoara Tribunal, in the interlocutory judgment referring the matter, took the view that the text may be unconstitutional.

The Court answered in two steps. The first checks whether the interpretation given by the High Court stays within the limits of Article 126(3) of the Constitution, that is within the task of ensuring the uniform application of the law, and the answer is yes. The second measures against the Constitution the normative content thus established, and there the Court finds that it has already answered: through Decision no. 344 of 9 July 2024, Decision no. 516 of 17 October 2024 and Decision no. 563 of 31 October 2024 it held that the fixed length, which rises in steps, matches the seriousness of the acts and therefore complies with the principle of proportionality. And driving a motor vehicle is not a fundamental right, so the restriction under Article 53 of the Constitution does not even arise. „Since no new elements have arisen”, the Court writes in paragraph 27, the earlier solution and reasoning remain valid.

What it changes in practice

The decision is final and generally binding from publication, that is from 9 September 2026. Being a dismissal, it takes nothing out of the legislation and adds nothing to it: it confirms the state of the law.

The first practical effect concerns anyone with a traffic ticket carrying 90 days of suspension on the table in front of them. The court cannot cut the 90 days to 60 or to 30, cannot replace them with a warning and cannot suspend them conditionally. It can do one thing only: annul the ticket, if the act did not happen or was not properly recorded. When it upholds the ticket, the additional penalty goes with it, in the form written into the law.

The second effect concerns the arguments that can be used in a challenge against a traffic ticket. The criticism that the additional penalty is disproportionate has received six answers from the Constitutional Court so far: Decisions no. 344/2024, no. 516/2024 and no. 563/2024, cited in this very decision, plus Decisions no. 52/2026, no. 165/2026 and the one published now. The High Court had settled it with binding force as early as 2021. A lawyer who keeps building a defence on this ground spends time on a road that is closed, instead of attacking the way the act was recorded.

The third effect is one of legal vocabulary, but with concrete consequences. The operative part says that the provisions are constitutional „in relation to the criticisms raised”. The formula does not close the text for ever: a fresh criticism, founded on constitutional provisions other than those relied on here, can still be raised in another case. What can no longer be taken up with any prospect of success is exactly what has been argued so far, namely the proportionality of the fixed length.

The fourth effect falls on the author of the plea herself. The decision is served on the Hunedoara Tribunal, which goes on hearing the challenge without being able to reduce the suspension. Between the interlocutory judgment by which the tribunal referred the matter to the Court, on 23 March 2022, and the publication of the decision, 1,631 days went by, that is four and a half years, near enough. The criminal side of drink driving reached the Court in September 2026, when it held that blood alcohol may be measured under a ministerial order rather than a statute.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In the traffic rules, nothing. The class IV fine and the 90 days of suspension stay exactly as they were, and the binding interpretation from 2021 stays standing.

What has changed is the density of the case law. Until the summer of 2026, a driver who wanted to know whether it was still worth asking a judge for a reduction found the answer in an appeal in the interest of the law from 2021 and in a handful of Constitutional Court decisions spread over several years. In six weeks, between 30 July and 9 September 2026, the Official Gazette of Romania published three decisions on the same question: Decision no. 52/2026, in no. 628 of 30 July, Decision no. 165/2026, in no. 684 of 19 August, and Decision no. 705/2025, now. All three reach the same result.

The legal framework relied on in the case has changed in the meantime as well. When the tribunal was seised, Article 104 of the Ordinance allowed the head of the traffic police to reduce the suspension period, but not below 30 days. Government Ordinance no. 1/2022, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 89 of 28 January 2022, rewrote the article: the reduction is now one third, it is granted only if the applicant has passed the test on knowledge of the traffic rules and obtained the licence at least one year before the act and, more important for this case, it is not granted at all where the suspension was imposed for the act in Article 102(3)(a), that is precisely for drink-driving.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Predictability. A penalised driver knows from the outset what the risk is and how long the penalty lasts, and the length does not depend on the panel that hears the challenge.
  • Equal treatment. The same act attracts the same suspension across the country, with no differences between district courts or between tribunals.
  • A body of case law that can be cited. Courts and lawyers now have, on the same text, a coherent set of decisions that close the discussion, instead of arguments started from scratch in every case.
  • The Court did not dodge the review. It first checked whether the High Court’s interpretation stays within the task of unifying practice, and then examined the content of the rule as thus established.

What remains a problem

  • The judge has nothing to weigh between the two extreme outcomes. Either the ticket is annulled, or the full 90 days stand, however different the circumstances of two acts caught by the same letter of the law.
  • The reasoning is almost entirely by reference. Of paragraphs 21 to 27, which make up the examination proper, six cite earlier decisions and the seventh finds that no new elements have arisen.
  • The decision was taken by a majority of votes, yet no dissenting opinion was published. The reader learns that there was disagreement within the panel, without learning what it was about.
  • The delay. When the verdict arrives 1,631 days after the referral, it is of no use to anyone in the case that produced it, and in the meantime the law relied on in the argument has changed.
  • Not every criticism gets an answer. Article 23 of the Constitution, Article 1(5), Article 21(3) and Article 5 paragraph 1 of the Convention appear in the list of provisions relied on, but are not examined separately anywhere in the reasoning.

Practical advice

  1. Attack the recording of the act, not the length of the penalty. After Decision no. 5/2021 and the six Constitutional Court decisions on the same text, the proportionality argument no longer stands a chance. The only way the 90 days disappear is the annulment of the ticket.
  2. Do not let the time limit for the challenge run out. The challenge against a traffic ticket is filed within the period laid down by law from service of the ticket, and filing it suspends enforcement of the fine and of the licence suspension until the case is finally decided.
  3. Be ready for the suspension to restart. Where the challenge is finally dismissed, or is allowed in part with the additional penalty upheld, the suspension resumes by operation of law from the day after the licence is handed in, and in any event no later than 30 days after the judgment becomes final. Putting off the handover buys no time.
  4. Check whether you are still entitled to the administrative reduction. The request goes to the head of the traffic police, and the reduction is one third. It is not granted, however, where the suspension was imposed for driving under the influence of alcohol, where the period was increased under the law or where it results from several periods added together.
  5. Do not confuse the request for a reduction with the challenge. The request under Article 104 is addressed to the traffic police and concerns the length of the suspension. The challenge is addressed to the court and concerns the ticket. The time limit for contesting runs independently of the administrative request, and filing one does not stop the other.
  6. Watch out for a repeat offence in the first six months. A fresh act in the same category, committed within six months of the end of the previous suspension period, increases by operation of law by another 30 days the suspension imposed for the new act.

Frequently asked questions

Has anything changed in the law after this decision?
No. This is a dismissal, so Article 102(3) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002 stays in force unchanged, with the class IV fine and the 90-day suspension, and the binding interpretation given by the High Court in Decision no. 5/2021 applies as before.
Can the judge cut my 90 days if I admit the act?
No. The court hearing the challenge against a traffic ticket cannot examine whether the additional penalty is proportionate. It can annul the ticket, in which case both the fine and the suspension fall away, or it can uphold it, in which case the suspension stays at 90 days.
What if the court replaces my fine with a warning?
The suspension stays. The High Court said expressly that the judge may remove the additional penalty only when annulling the ticket, and not when upholding the main penalty or replacing it with a warning.
Is there any other way of shortening the suspension?
Yes, but not in court. Article 104 of the Ordinance allows a reduction of one third, at the request of the licence holder, by the head of the traffic police, on cumulative conditions. The reduction is not granted for driving under the influence of alcohol, for the acts in Article 102(4), where the period was increased under the law or where it results from several periods added together.
Why is a decision delivered in December 2025 appearing only now?
Constitutional Court decisions take effect from publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, and months can pass between delivery and publication. Here 279 days passed. In that interval the Court delivered and published two other decisions on the same question, in July and in August 2026.
What does it mean that the decision was taken „by a majority of votes”?
That not all the judges on the panel agreed with the outcome. The decision produces the same effects as one adopted unanimously. No dissenting or concurring opinion was published alongside it in the Official Gazette of Romania.
Can I still challenge the text in the future?
The operative part says that the provisions are constitutional „in relation to the criticisms raised”. A fresh plea, founded on constitutional provisions other than those discussed here, remains possible. Taking up the same criticisms again, however, stands no chance as long as no new elements appear.

Editorial analysis

The outcome surprises nobody who follows the field, and that is part of the problem. What is interesting about Decision no. 705/2025 is not what the Court decided, but what can be seen around the decision. Three things, all of them checkable in the text.

The first is the calendar. The plea reached the Court through the interlocutory judgment of 23 March 2022 and was decided on 4 December 2025, that is after 1,352 days. Publication took another 279 days, so 1,631 days in total from the referral. By way of comparison, the appeal in the interest of the law that this decision endorses was delivered on 12 April 2021 and published on 18 June 2021, 67 days later. Nor is the delay an isolated case: Decision no. 516/2024, cited here, was delivered on 17 October 2024 and published only on 5 November 2025, 384 days later. The side effect of the delay shows in the order of publication: Decision no. 52/2026, delivered on 22 January 2026, was published on 30 July 2026, and Decision no. 165/2026, delivered on 26 February 2026, on 19 August 2026. The oldest decision appears last, 21 days after one delivered almost three months later. A reader following the Official Gazette of Romania receives the answers in the reverse order to the one in which they were given.

The second is the disagreement within the panel, invisible to anyone who does not compare the decisions. Decision no. 705/2025 was taken by a majority of votes. Likewise, Decision no. 165/2026 was adopted unanimously as regards Article 104, but by a majority as regards Article 102(3). By contrast, Decision no. 52/2026 was taken unanimously. In other words, on the fixed 90-day period the Court is not unanimous, and has not been twice in a row. No dissenting opinion was published, so the minority argument exists nowhere in the public domain, although it would be the only serious material for a legislative debate.

The third has to do with the drafting and with the silences in the reasoning. Of the 28 paragraphs, eight summarise the grounds of the plea, and two of those repeat two others almost word for word: paragraph 9 restates paragraph 5, and paragraph 11 restates paragraph 7. In the examination part, paragraphs 21 to 26 are references to earlier decisions, and paragraph 27 finds that no new elements have arisen. More important, paragraph 20 lists the provisions relied on, among them Article 23 and Article 1(5) of the Constitution and Article 5 paragraph 1 of the Convention, yet the reasoning answers only on Article 21, on Article 6 of the Convention, on Article 1(3), on Article 53 and on Article 126. The argument with which the author opened her plea, the one founded on Article 5 of the Convention, receives no answer at all.

Above all of this sits a fact the decision does not flag. The author built her criticism on a comparison: the administration can adjust the penalty under Article 104, the judge cannot. That comparison has emptied out in the meantime. Since 2022, Government Ordinance no. 1/2022 has rewritten Article 104, and the administrative reduction is no longer granted at all for the act in Article 102(3)(a), precisely the act for which she had been penalised. Today, for drink-driving below the criminal threshold, neither the judge nor the head of the traffic police can shorten anything. The decision published now therefore discusses a paradox that no longer exists, without saying so.

What should be changed

  • A statutory deadline for publishing Constitutional Court decisions. Thirty or sixty days from delivery, with a duty to give reasons for any overrun. Effect: decisions would appear in the order in which they were given, and the case that produced the plea could be closed while it still serves a practical purpose for the parties.
  • Publication of the dissenting opinion or, failing that, of a note that none was filed. Effect: when a decision is taken by a majority on a question that comes back year after year, the minority argument becomes public material for Parliament, instead of information lost in the Court’s archive.
  • Reproduction of the essential passage from the decision referred to. Here the entire answer on the merits lies in paragraphs 60 to 88 and 93 of Decision no. 344/2024. Effect: the reader learns why they lost without having to open three other issues of the Official Gazette of Romania.
  • An express answer to every provision listed as relied on. Either an examination on the merits, or one sentence saying why the criticism cannot be accepted in that form. Effect: the impression that part of the plea went unread disappears, and the authors of future pleas know what has already been settled.
  • An update, in the body of the decision, on the state of the rules cited in the reasoning. A note that Article 104 was rewritten by Government Ordinance no. 1/2022 would have taken two lines. Effect: anyone reading the decision in 2026 is not left with the impression that the administrative reduction still works as described in paragraph 12.
  • An intermediate step in the law, decided by Parliament and not by the courts. For instance a limited margin of judicial adjustment, between 60 and 90 days, for acts that caused no accident. Effect: the judge would no longer be forced to choose between annulling the whole ticket and upholding a penalty they consider disproportionate, and the Court would stop receiving the same plea year after year.

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. 765 of 9 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 115 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.