Despre răspunderea Președintelui României
About the liability of the President of Romania

Summary/Abstract: The immunity which the President of Romania enjoys is a „constitutional guarantee, a measure of legal protection of the mandate that is meant to ensure the independence of the mandate holder from any external pressures or abuses. The guarantee provided by Article 72 (1) of the Constitution encourages the mandate holder to adopt an active role in the political life of the society, as it removes his legal liability for the political opinions expressed in exercising the function of public dignity. However, the holder of the mandate remains liable, according to the law, for all acts and deeds committed during the period in which he exercised the public office and which were not related to the votes or political opinions”.The quoted text is an excerpt from the grounds retained by the Constitutional Court in the motivation of its Decision No 284 of 21 May 2014, by which the constitutional contentious court has solved the legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the President of the Republic and the Government of Romania. The whole scaffolding of the arguments of the Constitutional Court leads to the „construction” of an active role of the President in the political and social life of the country as if it were limited to the free expression of some political opinions under the protection of parliamentary immunity.However, it should be noted that the Fundamental Law does not recognize through an express text „the active role of the President of Romania in the political life”. This is why we have reservations about the fairness of the quoted decision. First, the term of political life used in the decision of the Constitutional Court is far too general and thus it has a large margin of inaccuracy. After all, any public authority regulated in Title III of the Constitution must have an active role in the political life. When the Constitution refers in Article 80 to the Role of the President it takes into account the prerogatives of this public institution in the process of exercising public powers, a term equivalent to the governing activity, or the exercise of these prerogatives does not imply an activation of the constitutional role of the President of Romania, but its accomplishment within the limits outlined by the constitutional texts. Beyond this is the abusive exercise of the governing acts by the holder of the mandate of President of Romania, for which he, not benefiting from immunity, is required to be liable according to the Constitution.

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