Developments and perspectives in the regulation of the general damages covered by the compulsory civil liability insurance for motor vehicles in Romania

Abstract

For a long time now, the courts have been left to determine the amount of the general damages claimed by the injured persons as a result of traffic accidents.  In the absence of mandatory legal or case law guidelines or criteria the case law generated unpredictability with negative effects on all those involved. The Romanian case law has managed to set as benchmarks only certain general criteria for assessing the amount of the compensation for personal injuries, failing to set out fixed amounts/values for the compensation (unlike the Italian case law). In addition, no private initiative has succeeded in proposing a tool to make the practice more consistent (such as in Germany).

In this context, Law 132/2017 proposes legal criteria for determining certain compensations for personal injuries. But the intervention of the Romanian legislator is very general (not detailed) as opposed to other countries having very detailed regulations on the amounts granted to the victims of traffic accidents for compensating personal injuries (such as in Spain).

Law no. 132/2017 only proposes the assessment of the physical pain based on traumatic points (the value of one traumatic point being equal to twice the minimum gross basic salary imposed by law at the time of the accident). Furthermore, it seems to limit the evidence of psychological trauma in case of injuries to documents (ignoring the need/utility of witnesses as evidence) and offers no criteria for the assessment of the compensation for personal injuries in case of death following a traffic accident. Even so the legal provisions are not applicable because the secondary legislation establishing the traumatic score is still missing for the time being.