Parliament

SECTION 1 - Organization and functioning

ARTICLE 61 - Role and structure

(1) Parliament is the supreme representative body of the Romanian people and the sole legislative authority of the country.

(2) Parliament consists of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

ARTICLE 62 - Election of the Chambers

(1) The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall be elected by universal, equal, direct, secret and free suffrage, in accordance with the electoral law.

(2) Organizations of citizens belonging to national minorities, which fail to obtain the number of votes for representation in Parliament, have the right to one Deputy seat each, under the terms of the electoral law. Citizens of a national minority are entitled to be represented by one organization only.

(3) The number of Deputies and Senators shall be established by the electoral law, in proportion to the population of Romania.

ARTICLE 63 - Term of office

(1) The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall be elected for a term of office of 4 years, which may be extended de jure in the event of a mobilization, war, siege, or emergency, until such event has ceased to exist.

(2) Elections to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall be held within three months at the most of the expiry of the term of office or the Parliament dissolution.

(3) The newly elected Parliament shall meet upon convening by the President of Romania, within twenty days of the elections.

(4) The Chambers' term of office shall be prolonged until the new Parliament legally meets. During this period, the Constitution shall not undergo any revision, nor shall any organic laws be passed, amended or repealed.

(5) Bills or legislative proposals entered on the agenda of the preceding Parliament shall be carried over in the session of the new Parliament.

ARTICLE 64 - Organizational structure

(1) The organization and functioning of each Chamber shall be regulated by its own Standing Orders. Financial resources of the Chambers shall be provided for in the budgets approved by them.

(2) Each Chamber shall elect its Standing Bureau. The President of the Chamber of Deputies and the President of the Senate shall be elected for the Chambers' term of office. The other members of the Standing Bureaus shall be elected at the opening of each session. The members of the Standing Bureaus may be dismissed before the expiry of the term of office.

(3) Deputies and Senators may be organized into Parliamentary Groups, according to the Standing Orders of each Chamber.

(4) Each Chamber shall set up Standing Committees and may institute inquiry committees or other special committees. The Chambers may set up joint committees.

(5) The Standing Bureaus and Parliamentary Committees shall be made up so as to reflect the political spectrum of each Chamber.

ARTICLE 65 - Sittings of the Chambers

(1) The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall meet in separate sittings.

(2) The Chambers may also meet in joint sittings, based on the regulations passed by a majority vote of the Deputies and Senators, in order: a) to receive the message of the President of Romania; b) to approve the State budget and the State social security budget; c) to declare total or partial mobilization; d) to declare a state of war; e) to suspend or terminate armed hostilities; f) to approve the national strategy of homeland defence; g) to examine reports of the Supreme Council of National Defence; h) to appoint, based on proposals by the President of Romania, the directors of the intelligence services, and to exercise control over the activity of such services; i) to appoint the Advocate of the People; j) to establish the status of the Deputies and Senators, their emoluments, and other rights; k) to fulfil any other prerogatives, which - in accordance with the Constitution or the Standing Orders - shall be exercised in a joint sitting.

ARTICLE 66 - Sessions

(1) The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall meet in two ordinary sessions every year. The first session begins in February and is due to last by the end of June at the latest. The second session begins in September and is due to last by the end of December at the latest.

(2) The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate may also meet in extraordinary sessions, at the request of the President of Romania, the Standing Bureau of each Chamber or of at least one third of the number of Deputies or Senators.

(3) Each Chamber shall be convened by its president.

ARTICLE 67 - Acts of Parliament and legal quorum The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall pass laws, and carry resolutions and motions, in the presence of the majority of their members.

ARTICLE 68 - Publicity of sittings

(1) The sittings of both Chambers shall be public.

(2) The Chambers may decide that certain sittings be secret.

SECTION 2 - Statute of Deputies and Senators

ARTICLE 69 - Representative mandate

(1) In the exercise of their mandate Deputies and Senators shall be in the service of the people.

(2) Any imperative mandate shall be null.

ARTICLE 70 - Term of office of Deputies and Senators

(1) Deputies and Senators shall begin the exercise of their office on the day the Chamber whose members they are has lawfully met, on condition the election is validated and the oath is taken. The form of the oath shall be regulated by an organic law.

(2) The capacity as a Deputy or Senator shall cease on the same day the newly elected Chambers shall legally meet, or in case of resignation, disenfranchisement, incompatibility, or death.

ARTICLE 71 - Incompatibilities

(1) No one may be a Deputy and a Senator at the same time.

(2) The capacity as a Deputy or Senator is incompatible with the exercise of any public office in authority, with the exception of Government membership.

(3) Other incompatibilities shall be established by organic law.

ARTICLE 72 - Parliamentary immunity

(1) No Deputy or Senator shall be held judicially accountable for the votes cast or the political opinions expressed while exercising their office.

(2) The Deputies and Senators may be subject to criminal investigation, or criminally prosecuted for acts that are not connected with their votes or their political opinions expressed in the exercise of their office, but shall not be searched, detained or arrested without the consent of the Chamber they belong to, after being heard. The investigation and prosecution shall only be carried out by the Public Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The High Court of Cassation and Justice shall have jurisdiction over this case.

(3) If caught in the act, Deputies or Senators may be detained and searched. The Minister of Justice shall inform without delay the president of the Chamber in question on the detainment and search. If, after being notified, the Chamber in question finds there are no grounds for the detainment, it shall order the annulment of such a measure at once.

SSECTION 3 - Legislation

ARTICLE 73 - Classes of laws

(1) Parliament passes constitutional, organic, and ordinary laws.

(2) Constitutional laws shall be pertaining to the revision of the Constitution.

(3) Organic laws shall regulate: a) the electoral system; the organization and functioning of the Permanent Electoral Authority; b) the organization, functioning, and financing of political parties; c) the statute of Deputies and Senators, the establishment of their emoluments and other rights; d) the organization and holding of referendum; e) the organization of the Government and of the Supreme Council of National Defence; f) the state of partial or total mobilization of the armed forcesand the state of war; g) the state of siege and emergency; h) criminal offences, penalties, and the execution thereof; i) the granting of amnesty or collective pardon; j) the statute of public servants; k) the contentious business falling within the competence of administrative courts; l) the organization and functioning of the Superior Council of Magistracy, the courts of law, the Public Ministry, and the Court of Audit; m) the general legal status of property and inheritance; n) the general organization of education; o) the organization of local public administration, territory, as well as the general rules on local autonomy; p) the general rules covering labour relations, trade unions, employers' associations, and social protection; r) the status of national minorities in Romania; s) the general statutory rules of religious cults; t) the other fields for which the Constitution stipulates the enactment of organic laws.

ARTICLE 74 - Legislative initiative

(1) A legislative initiative shall lie, as the case may be, with the Government, Deputies, Senators, or a number of at least 100,000 citizens entitled to vote. The citizens who exercise their right to a legislative initiative must belong to at least one quarter of the country's counties, while, in each of those counties or the Municipality of Bucharest, at least 5,000 signatures should be registered in support of such initiative.

(2) A legislative initiative of the citizens may not touch on matters concerning taxation, international affairs, amnesty or pardon.

(3) The Government shall exercise its legislative initiative by introducing bills to the Chamber having competence for its adoption, as a first notified Chamber.

(4) Deputies, Senators and citizens exercising the right of legislative initiative may present proposals only in the form required for bills.

(5) Legislative proposals shall be first submitted to the Chamber having competence for its adoption, as a first notified Chamber.

ARTICLE 75 - Notification of the Chambers

(1) The Chamber of Deputies, as a first notified Chamber, shall debate and adopt the bills and legislative proposals for the ratification of treaties or other international agreements and the legislative measures deriving from the implementation of such treaties and agreements, as well as bills of the organic laws stipulated under article 31 (5), article 40 (3), article 55 (2), article 58 (3), article 73 (3) e), k), 1), n), o), article 79 (2), article 102 (3), article 105 (2), article 117 (3), article 118 (2) and (3), article 120 (2), article 126 (4) and (5), and article 142 (5). The other bills or legislative proposals shall be submitted to the Senate, as a first notified Chamber, for debate and adoption.

(2) The first notified Chamber shall pronounce within 45 days. For codes and other extremely complex laws, the time limit will be 60 days. If such time limits are exceeded, it shall be deemed that the bill or legislative proposal has been adopted.

(3) After the first notified Chamber adopts or repeals it, the bill or legislative proposal shall be sent to the other Chamber,which will make a final decision.

(4) In the event the first notified Chamber adopts a provision which, under paragraph (1), belongs to its decision-making competence, the provision is adopted as final if the other Chamber also adopts it. Otherwise, for the provision in question only, the bill shall be returned to the first notified Chamber, which will make a final decision in an emergency procedure.

(5) The provisions of paragraph (4) concerning the bill being returned shall also apply accordingly if the decision-making Chamber should adopt a provision for which the decision-making competence belongs to the first Chamber.

ARTICLE 76 - Passing of bills and resolutions

(1) Organic laws and resolutions concerning the Standing Orders of the Chambers shall be passed by the majority vote of the members of each Chamber.

(2) Ordinary laws and resolutions shall be passed by the majority vote of the members present in each Chamber.

(3) At the request of the Government or on its own initiative, Parliament may pass bills or legislative proposals under an emergency procedure, established in accordance with the Standing Orders of each Chamber.

ARTICLE 77 - Promulgation of laws

(1) A law shall be submitted for promulgation to the President of Romania. Promulgation shall be given within twenty days after receipt of the law.

(2) Before promulgation, the President of Romania may return the law to Parliament for reconsideration, and he may do so only once.

(3) In case the President has requested that law be reconsidered or a review has been asked for as to its conformity with the Constitution, promulgation shall be made within ten days from receiving the law passed after its reconsideration, or the decision of the Constitutional Court confirming its constitutionality.

ARTICLE 78 - Coming into force of laws The law shall be published in the Official Gazette of Romania and come into force 3 days after its publication date, or on a subsequent date stipulated in its text.

ARTICLE 79 - Legislative Council

(1) The Legislative Council shall be an advisory expert body of Parliament, that advises draft normative acts for the purpose of a systematic unification and co-ordination of the whole body of laws. It shall keep the official record of the legislation of Romania.

(2) The setting up, organization and functioning of the Legislative Council shall be regulated by an organic law.