Critical considerations regarding the limits of the power to revise the Romanian Constitution

Abstract

By starting from several principle considerations regarding the relations between the constituent power, the original and the derived constituent authority, I shall make a critical analysis of the limits of the power to revise the Constitution, such as they regulated in 1991 Constitution of Romania. The material limits of the revision raise certain problems in terms of necessity, clarity and, in the case of Republican form of government, of the validity of introduction into the legal system. The teleological limits which prohibit revisions that result in the suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms or their guarantees raise several definition problems, especially when the effect targeted by the constitutional interdiction is indirectly obtained. Finally, the limitation in exceptional situations betrays the lacunae of the Constitution of Romania in their definition, and in the case of the prohibition of revision in times of war, the contradictory historical experiences.