Romanian Law nr. 167/2020 or how the legislative drafting should not be done. (I) The regulatory offence of moral harassment in the workplace

Abstract

We will review the novelties introduced by the Law nr. 167/2020, in reference to the legal framework at the date of the adoption and examples from the comparative law. The core of the Act is formed by the provisions on the regulatory offence of moral harassment in the workplace, and that is the topic on which we will focus in this first part of our study.

The legislature’s initiative to protect the victims of a social phenomenon causing severe damages, that occures mainly in the field of work, is to be praised. We also salute the fact that the new notion of moral harassment does not impose the proof of a ground of discrimination, as the harasser’s behaviour is destructive no matter the motivation of the harassers. However, what it begins to seem like an encomiastic discourse stops here. As soon as we start analysing the provisions that should have combatted the moral harassment, the findings are mostly negative. The legal description of the offence contains incoherent wordings, some of them even contradictory; on the other hand, some are too narrow to efficiently protect the targets of the harassment, and others, are useless. The special rules of proof are deficiently drafted, and the most surprising is the failure of the Parliament to identify a competent authority to impose the prescribed sanctions.