Legal actions against Governmental Ordinances. The possibility of taking the action, according to Art. 9, paragraph 1 of the Administrative Court Law after Parliament approval by law

Abstract

The possibility of individuals to address the court since they consider themselves harmed by and ordinance or by a provision of the ordinance declared unconstitutional is guaranteed by the fundamental law itself, the Parliament being thus compelled by its explicit constitutional power to stipulate such conditions in exercising this right.

At present, though such actions are trialled by the Administrative Court Law and would theoretically have a broad area of application, such practices seem not rooted in reality. Once an ordinance is ratified by the Parliament it apparently loses its specificity and uniqueness, as it is absorbed and assimilated by the law. Therefore, when an ordinance is ratified, it immediately ceases to exist as a distinctive normative juridical act.

In the Romanian legal practice it is customary to maintain the term 'ordinance' even after such an act is ratified, and thus becomes a law - though it would be more accurate to consider its mere ratification the original law, and not the ordinance as such.

Though the Administrative Court Law stipulates how an ordinance can be challenged in court if an individual considers the ordinance to be unconstitutional, one has to observe that such an action is quite impossible after Parliament ratification precisely because of the time - which, at least in theory, should be short - between the entry into force of the ordinance and timing of adoption by law. Therefore, the action covered by Article. 9, paragraph 1 of the Administrative Court Law, has a limited temporal scope.