I. At the hearing of , the Constitutional Court, unanimously, dismissed the request made by the President of the Senate and found that there was no legal dispute of a constitutional nature between the Government of Romania and the Prime Minister of Romania, on the one hand, and the Parliament of Romania, on the other.
II. At the same hearing, the Constitutional Court, as part of the review of Parliament’s decisions, unanimously upheld the referral made by 50 MPs — non-affiliated Deputies and members of the parliamentary groups of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians and the Social Democratic Party — and found unconstitutional Decision No 5/2020 of the Parliament of Romania approving the state of alert and the measures instituted by Government Decision No 394/2020 on the state of alert and the measures applying for its duration to prevent and combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In giving this decision, the Court took into account its previous case-law, namely Decision No 457 of 25 June 2020, in which it found that Article 4 (3) and (4) of Law No 55/2020 on certain measures to prevent and combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was unconstitutional. Since the latter legal provisions, which formed the basis for the adoption of the parliamentary decision under consideration, were unconstitutional, the Court, applying Article 147 (1) and (4) of the Constitution, held that the Romanian Parliament’s Decision No 5/2020 was itself unconstitutional and lacked constitutional basis.
However, the Court stated that Government Decision No 394/2020 on the state of alert and the measures applying for its duration to prevent and combat the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to produce legal effects and remains in force in its wording not amended by the provisions of the Romanian Parliament Decision No 5/2020. This is because Government Decision No 394/2020 is a legislative act of its own over which the Constitutional Court does not have jurisdiction to rule, having been adopted pursuant to Article 4 (1) of Law No 55/2020, while this Decision of the Court concerns only the amendments and additions made to it by the sole Article of the Romanian Parliament Decision No 5/2020.
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Decisions are final and generally binding.
The arguments set out in the grounds for the decisions of the Constitutional Court will be set out in the decisions, which will be published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I.
External Relations, Press and Protocol Department of the Constitutional Court