Description

The Legislative Web Portal was developed as part of the N-Lex project, co-financed under the European Social Fund operational programme for administrative capacity development.

Its purpose is to:

• upgrade services providing public access to legislation;
• align national standards on EU ones. 

Managed by the Ministry of Justice, the system provides options including:

• access to over 150,000 regulatory acts (1989 - present, plus relevant pre-1989 legislation)
• advanced search options using multiple criteria: type of act, number, year, date of issue, date of publication, publication type, author
• narrowing down search results using criteria such as a specific term (or all specific terms) in the title or the body of a legislative document
• displaying search results and sorting them by relevance
• access to all legislative changes
• viewing changes to regulatory acts
• viewing the content of regulatory acts and establishing whether they are still in force
• access to the consolidated versions of regulatory acts at dates specified by the user.

The database is updated daily, in line with legislative changes.

Legal acts

The Romanian legal framework includes the following legal instruments:

• The Constitution is Romania's supreme law. It regulates the structure of Romania as a national, unitary and indivisible State, the relations between executive, legislative and judicial power and between State bodies, citizens, and legal persons.
• Constitutional laws emanate from the constituent power - i.e. from the constituent assembly elected and convened for that purpose.
• Organic laws regulate areas of high importance to the State, such as the state borders, Romanian citizenship, the state coat of arms and the state seal, the legal arrangements for property and inheritance, the organisation and holding of referenda, criminal offences, sentences and the rules on the serving of sentences, the organisation and functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy, of the courts, of the Public Prosecution Service and the Court of Accounts, the rights of individuals who are harmed by a public authority, national defence, the organisation of Government bodies, political parties.
• Ordinary laws regulate all other areas which are not covered by organic laws. An ordinary law cannot amend or modify a higher norm, such as an organic law or the Constitution.
• In special cases (Parliamentary recesses) certain areas, as determined by the Parliament, can, on the basis of a legislative delegation, be regulated by government orders. Such orders are issued on the basis of a special act of empowerment, within the limits and under the conditions laid down by that act. In emergency situations, the Government can issue emergency orders in any area if considered necessary.
• Government decisions determine how laws are to be effectively implemented and other various organisational aspects of their implementation.
• legislative acts issued by the central government administration (orders and instructions) are issued only on the basis of and in order to implement laws, Government decisions and Government orders.
• acts of autonomous administrative authorities
• legislative acts issued by local government administration (County Councils, Local Councils, Bucharest General Council) regulate areas that fall within the competence of local government authorities.