INTRODUCTION

From an institutional perspective, Romania is a young country. The (modern) state emerged at the middle of the 19th century and it struggled through the stormy 20th, an essential background for understanding the current debates on the rule of law.

The legal basis of modern Romania was laid down by a group of revolutionaries involved in the events that shaped Europe in 1848.1 Most of them belonged to wealthy families and they all studied abroad, particularly in Paris. When they returned to Romania, their immediate goal was to erase the existing political system and replace it with the French one, which they did by enacting legislation based on the Napoleonic Codes. However, the constitutional framework was not ready for a republican construct, and they turned to the (then modern) Belgian Constitution. This drastic legal transplant was difficult to assimilate, and it took at least half a century before the new design became functional, so the politicians considered it their duty to lead the process, while law became a mere instrument to achieve their goals.

The second half of the 20th century saw the rise of communism, where the Marxist blueprint already defined law as a simple ‘superstructure’ meant to guide the people towards the single beacon of following the state.