Curtea Constituţională, gardian al libertăţii individuale
Constitutional Court, guardian of individual freedom

Summary/Abstract: The moment when Romania gave itself a new fundamental law, it entered the family of European countries with constitutional jurisdiction. The Romanian Constitutional Court is competent to control the laws both on the way of a priori control, and on the way of a posteriori control. The latter is exercised by way of a preliminary ruling, raised before the judge a quo, in the course of a dispute of common law and to the exclusion of a popular action.Individual freedom, enshrined in Article 23 of the Romanian Constitution, is one of the oldest human rights recognized to man. Article 23 stipulates a series of safeguards designed to prevent a person from being abusively deprived of his liberty. Thus, extreme and exceptional measures, as long as the search or the arrest, can be taken only according to the motives and the procedure envisaged by the law.By several decisions, the Constitutional Court reaffirmed its role as guarantor of the fundamental law, intervening and giving the proper interpretation of the provisions of Article 23.Individual liberty and personal security are also guaranteed by two other important provisions of the Constitution. According to section 126, the jurisdiction and procedure before the courts are within the scope of the law, excluding all extraordinary proceedings. So being, any person can know the norms and the guarantees of procedure, to formulate the best defense. Similarly, the Constitution provides that the law only provides for the future, with the exception of the more favorable criminal law.

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