Although we were all present, with our eyes on the screens and with the files scrolling daily through breaking news, we wake up today wondering when exactly the logic of the Romanian Justice was fractured so seriously, especially when the deeds of some "high-ranking" characters reached the court table. What were the decisive moments when it was "regulated" in favor of criminals?
Everything happened under our noses, step by step, decision by decision, until the mechanism that should have clarified the culprits ended up dissolving them. Today, Justice no longer functions as an instrument of truth, but as one pestilential nebulain which responsibilities are diffused, mistakes are mitigated, and guilts – once precise – seem almost forgotten, as if the passage of time were no longer a procedural accident, but a treacherous strategy.
What are these terms:
prescription is the term after which the state can no longer condemn a criminal act.
Interruption of prescription means that this term it stops and starts again from scratch when the state makes a relevant official act (indictment, referral to court, certain procedural acts).
In Romanian:
if prosecutors and judges do their job, time cannot save the criminal.
In Romania, for years it was said that there was no clear rule of interruption, so time passed regardless of what the Justice was doingand many heavy files simply died of old age.
The issue of the prescription of criminal liability is no longer a technical matter reserved for lawyers.
It has become one of the most serious vulnerabilities of the Romanian state, a mechanism through which difficult cases disappear, defendants escape, and public trust in justice is thinned to transparency.
The recent conclusions of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, formulated in the so-called Lin II Case, only confirm something that Romania already knows, but avoids looking at it head-on: the system has been pushed, deliberately or through negligence, into a zone of systemic impunity.
In order to understand the real stake of the two options proposed by the Attorney General, the route of this legal disaster must be recreated, step by step.
How it all began: the 2018 and 2022 CCR decisions
The origin of the chaos lies in two decisions of the Constitutional Court.
In April 2018, the CCR declared unconstitutional a sentence in the article of the Criminal Code that regulated the interruption of the limitation period. The decision did not eliminate the article, but created one area of uncertaintywhich the legislator was obliged to quickly correct.
He didn't.
Four years later, in May 2022, the CCR came back and declared unconstitutional the whole article regarding the interruption of the prescription. The Court then explicitly established that, in the period 2018–2022, there was no legal mechanism to break the statute of limitations.
In other words: the watch went smoothly.
This legislative inaction, combined with the interpretation of the CCR, created the first major loophole: entire files were at risk of being closed not because the facts did not exist, but because time had been allowed to flow.
The GEO and surface quiet
Following the CCR decision of 2022, the Minister of Justice at the time was forced to intervene by emergency ordinance, to once again regulate the criminal statute of limitations.
At first glance, the problem seemed "solved". Except it wasn't.
Because the big question wasn't what was going on from now onbut what is happening with the past.
And this is where the High Court of Cassation and Justice enters the scene.
The ÎCCJ strike: prescription as a substantive criminal law
In October 2022, the ÎCCJ established that the institution of prescription is a rule of substantive criminal lawnot a procedural one. The consequence is enormous: more favorable rules apply retroactive.
Based on this reasoning, the ÎCCJ decided that the effects of the CCR decisions are not limited to the period 2018–2022, but extend back to 2014the moment of entry into force of the new Criminal Code.
Simple translation:
according to this interpretation, between 2014 and 2018 there would have been no legal basis for the interruption of the prescription.
The result? A massive extension of the window of impunity, with a direct effect on corruption cases, including complex and large-scale ones.
CJEU Intervention: The Lin I Case
The conflict did not remain internal. Following a referral from the Brașov Court of Appeal, the Court of Justice of the European Union was called to rule.
In July 2023, the CJEU gave its judgment in the Lin I Case. The conclusion was clear: the decisions of the CCR apply only for the period 2018–2022not retroactively until 2014, as the ÎCCJ had established.
The CJEU explicitly emphasized the risk of systemic impunityespecially in the case of serious fraud affecting the financial interests of the European Union.
For EU law, things seemed settled.
For Romania, no.
The response of the ÎCCJ and the total blockade
In 2024, the High Court reacted. Through two successive decisions, it established that Romanian judges are obliged to respect the jurisprudence of the CCR and the ÎCCJ, even if it contradicts the CJEU judgment in Lin I.
The judges were thus put in a impossible situation:
– if it respects the CJEU, it violates the decisions of the national supreme courts;
– if it complies with CCR and ÎCCJ, it violates EU law.
This legal schizophrenia inevitably led to a new referral to the CJEU, forming the Lin II Case.
The Advocate General's conclusions: two options, one stake
In December 2025, the Advocate General of the CJEU published the conclusions in Lin II. They are not the final verdict, but they weigh heavily.
The Advocate General proposes two answer optionsdepending on the position that the Court will adopt.
Option 1: partial retraction
If the CJEU decides to nuance its ruling in Lin I, it could accept the application of the statute of limitations as a more favorable criminal law only for acts committed before July 27, 2023the date of Lin I's pronouncement.
This solution would limit the effects of the disaster, but would at least partially prevent the loss of some files.
It is the "compromise" variant, designed to reduce institutional tension.
Option 2: total firmness
If the CJEU fully maintains its position in Lin I, the message to the Romanian courts would be clear:
– national courts they cannot adopt decisions incompatible with the judgments of the CJEU;
– must leave unapplied the national standard that allows the retroactive extension of the prescription;
- the individual assessment of the risk of impunity is no longer necessary, because it has already been established that Sistema.
This is the hard version. The version that says, without management: EU law has priority, and Romania cannot create enclaves of impunity under constitutional pretext.
The real stake: not the prescription, but the rule of law
Beyond the legal nuances, the stakes are brutally simple:
can Romania still investigate and sanction serious crimes or not?
The statute of limitations is not a right of the offender, but a balancing tool. When it becomes a weapon of file destruction, it ceases to be a guarantee and becomes a strategy.
The conflict between the CCR, the ÎCCJ and the CJEU revealed something much more serious than a divergence of interpretation: an institutional reflex of self-protectionin which time is used as an ally of impunity.
what will happen
The CJEU verdict is expected early next year. Regardless of the solution, one thing is clear: Romania can no longer pretend that the prescription problem is "solved".
It is, in fact, a major test:
- either the Romanian state accepts to align its justice system with real European standards;
– either formally enshrines a gray area where big cases evaporate and criminal liability becomes optional.
And history will not remember the legal niceties. It will retain only this: who took time and who had the courage to stop it.
Thank you very much, dear CCR and invaluable ÊCCJ! You worked hard so that all the scumbags could get away.
You richly deserve your huge salaries, outrageous pensions and outrageous bonuses.
