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The dialogue of the Courts in the European Union could be a veritable centripetal force of integration around the shared values that govern the European constitutional order. This dialogue must be supported by appropriate instruments, as the power regarding the constitutional review of international treaties is regulated by the Romanian Constitution and by other Constitutions of the Member States. However, in Romania, the legislative framework and the actors involved as possible referral subjects determine a purely decorative nature of the power to review international treaties before ratification. In this study, we will analyze the constitutional developments in the matter, outlining regulatory insights for the effectiveness of this power of the CCR and for the strengthening of the judicial dialogue in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the transition of former communist countries, including Romania, from centralized political regimes to liberal democracies has been difficult. This process has been marked by a series of challenges and attempts by which the “new democracies" have attempted to adapt and adopt legislation, including of constitutional nature, in order to correspond and respond to new standards that have already been shared for decades, by the “old European democracies". One of the most present and active" agent" in this process of transformation and adaptation was, without doubt, the European Court of Human Rights. Though twenty-eight years have passed, this demarche has not been either short, easy or ended, but on the contrary. Many of the states concerned, including Romania, had, in fact, “transplanted" into their legal system not only values and principles that were not familiar to them, but also new institutions. Moreover, it was necessary for these institutions to be integrated and operate in a coherent system which involved solving and correcting numerous inconsistencies and malfunctions. Under this general umbrella, the aim of the present paper is that to find answers to questions such as: which were the effects of the ECHR and the ECtHR case-law for the Romanian legal system, including in respect of national legislation and national case-law? Are there certain issues/areas that have caused special problems? How has the Court exercised the margin of appreciation in relation to Romania? Is the Romania satisfied with how the margin is practiced? Are there examples of national judgments where the Romanian courts have rejected to implement ECtHR judgments? Have national organs, especially national courts, contributed to the jurisprudence of the ECtHR through a 'judicial dialogue'? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a country's evolution, there are different political, legal and economic stages and transformations. Also Romania has been subject to such transformations, one of these stages being represented by the dawn of a new constitutional order after the Revolution in 1989, which was followed by the establishment of a new constitutional framework by adopting, first of all, for the transition period, an act having the force of a "fundamental law" and, then, by adopting, in 1991, based on a referendum, the Romanian Constitution, which established the principles of the functioning of a State governed by the rule of law and the mechanisms for its functioning. The review of constitutionality, as part of this mechanism, was entrusted to the Constitutional Court as the guarantor for the supremacy of the Constitution and the only authority of constitutional jurisdiction in Romania. That was a first step, followed by a new challenge, i.e. the Europe-Atlantic Integration, that is to say Romania's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty and Romania's Accession to the European Union, which necessitated a revision of the Constitution in order to establish both the constitutional framework for the pre-accession stage and to determine in practice the relationship between national law and international order, namely the obligations of Romania stemming from such memberships. In this paper, we shall discuss some aspects relating to the Romanian Constitutional Court's case-law developments on priority or differences between national legal rules and international rules, the identical or divergent interpretation on points of law, the mutual reliance upon the case-law of such courts (ECHR, CJEU, CCR), presupposing a "judicial dialogue", especially since, for example, in March 2016, the Venice Commission adopted a Rule of Law Checklist which gives an overview of the extended scope of the rule of law which is based, inter alia, on the principle of legality, a principle with a broader scope, which also includes the relationship between international law and national law. In this context, we have in view the Constitutional Court's case-law developments with regard to the reliance upon the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and, implicitly, upon the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as a benchmark in the review of constitutionality, upon the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the effects and the priority of international treaties to which Romania is a party and which were concluded before the aforementioned constitutional transformations, regarded in terms of the case-law of the Constitutional Court of Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the issue of dialogue between the Court of Justice of the European Union and the constitutional courts of the Member States of the European Union, with special reference to the Constitutional Court of Romania, and from this perspective, the effects of integration into the European Union and the transnational judicial dialogue they produce within the national legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the constitutional basis underlying the relations between the Constitutional Court of Romania and the European Court of Human Rights, this study examines the judicial dialogue between the two courts and the effects thereof. The conclusion of this study, based on numerous examples from case-law, is that the dialogue between the constitutional judge and the European Judge serves to develop common standards for the protection of fundamental rights, as well as to enriching those existing at national level, with effects in terms of law-making and law-enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]