Constitutional Court rules Bolojan government's SAFE defence ordinance created a conflict with parliament
In a 5-4 vote, the court found the ordinance was adopted after the government lost a no-confidence vote. A separate challenge was postponed.
Romania's Constitutional Court (CCR) ruled on Thursday that there was a legal conflict of a constitutional nature between the government and parliament over the emergency ordinance on the SAFE programme. The judges' vote was 5 to 4, Mediafax reported.
The case was brought by the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorin Grindeanu. He argued that Ilie Bolojan's government adopted Emergency Ordinance 38/2026 and sent it for publication after parliament had withdrawn its confidence in a no-confidence vote on 5 May. The ordinance was published in the Official Gazette on 8 May, when the cabinet was only an interim government.
Under Article 110(4) of the constitution, an interim government may deal only with the day-to-day running of public affairs. Grindeanu also complained that the ordinance regulated matters that were already being debated in parliament, and that 12 new articles were added on the morning of the no-confidence vote.
On the same day the court postponed its decision on a separate challenge from the Ombudsman, who asked it to declare the SAFE ordinance unconstitutional. Grindeanu, the leader of the Social Democrats, had previously threatened Bolojan with a criminal complaint over the ordinance.