The Civil Procedure Code of Romania ( ro, Codul de procedură civilă al României) is the law regulating

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what ki ...

in Romania. It came into force on 15 February 2013 as Law no. 134/2010, implemented through Law no. 76/2012, replacing the old Civil Procedure Code of 1865. As a transitional measure, some of the Code's provisions came into force on 1 January 2016.

Background and implementation

The civil procedure code is the result of a major legal reform which began in the mid-2000s, prior to Romania's accession to the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

. It was designed in such a way as to simplify and accelerate civil proceedings, following repeated condemnations of Romania by the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a c ...

for breaching the standards of a fair civil trial as established by the

ECHR ECHR may refer to: * European Convention on Human Rights * European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interp ...

. To this end, new mechanisms were introduced to ensure an optimal and predictable duration of trials, as well as remedying a perceived inconsistency of Romanian

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a le ...

. The code came into force two years after a new

civil code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property, family, and obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core are ...

was also implemented, and thus it also aimed to align civil proceedings with the new

substantive law Substantive law is the set of laws that governs how members of a society are to behave.Substantive Law vs. Procedural Law: Definitions and Differences, Study.com/ref> It is contrasted with procedural law, which is the set of procedures for making, ...

. Despite a number of transitional issues, the 2015 Cooperation and Verification Mechanism report on Romania found that the new codes led to a decline in trial length to an average of 1.5 years. According to the same report there was also a reduction in the judiciary's overall workload, with tribunals and courts of appeal experiencing a 17% decline in the number of cases.

The code comprises a preliminary title and seven books (''cărţi'') which include provisions on contentious and non-contentious proceedings,

arbitration Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) that resolves disputes outside the judiciary courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons (the 'arbitrators', 'arbiters' or 'arbitral tribunal'), which renders the ' ...

, enforcement, special procedures (such as

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

and partition) and international civil lawsuits. The books are further divided into titles, chapters and sections.

References

{{LegalcodesofRomania Law of Romania

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

2013 in Romania 2013 in law

Background and implementation

Contents

See also

References