Cluj Mayor Emil Boc warns that the Fritz amendment to the ANI law goes far beyond the case of a particular person or political party: A law can change tomorrow’s rules. It cannot change, after the game is over, the rules under which yesterday’s game was played.

‘The Fritz amendment’ or the risk of democratic decline in Romania. The problem with this text – an amendment to the Integrity Law – goes far beyond the case of a particular person or a particular political party. A law can change tomorrow’s rules. It cannot change, after the game is over, the rules under which yesterday’s game was played.

The legislature is free to be stricter for the future. It is not, however, free to rewrite the legal past. If we accept that Parliament may subsequently alter the legal consequences of situations definitively established, the same mechanism could be used in future in many other areas.

Parliamentary majorities change. Protection against retroactivity must remain the same, regardless of who is in government and regardless of who the person affected is.

The Constitution does not protect individuals. In a democracy, the most dangerous precedent is not always the one that produces the greatest injustice today. It is the one that provides a justification for tomorrow’s injustice. ‘If they could do it, so can we.’

Few sentences are more dangerous to a democracy. Because, from that moment on, politics ceases to be a competition between projects and becomes a competition in reprisals.

Today, a parliamentary majority changes a rule and applies it to legal situations that arose before that rule. Tomorrow, another majority comes along and says: there is a precedent. The day after tomorrow, a third majority pushes the limit even further. And each one will have its justification ready:

‘We did not start it. If they could do it, so can we.’

This is how the slow degradation of the rule of law begins. Not necessarily through a spectacular assault on democracy, but through small exceptions accepted one after another, each justified by the precedent set by the previous one. This is the spiral of institutional retaliation. At its end, no common rules remain. There is only the alternation of those who use institutions against one another.

And democracy without common rules becomes merely a periodic struggle for control of the state.

That is why there must be a line that no one crosses! Regardless of whether we call ourselves liberals, social democrats, conservatives, AUR supporters or progressives. Regardless of who is mayor.

Regardless of who leads the Government. Regardless of who holds the majority in Parliament.

There must be a few statements on which we can all agree:

• We do not change the rules after the game is over.
• We do not make laws to eliminate opponents.
• We do not turn state institutions into instruments of political revenge.
• We do not ask the Constitutional Court to be on our side. We ask it to be on the side of the Constitution.

The Constitution exists above all for those moments when the majority would prefer it not to exist! Democracy does not mean only majority rule. If it were that simple, the Constitution would no longer be necessary. It would be enough for the parliamentary majority to decide whatever it wanted. Constitutional democracy means something deeper:

The majority governs, but even the majority cannot do whatever it wants. There are limits. There are rights. There is the separation of powers. There is legal certainty. There is the non-retroactivity of the law.

And there is a Constitution that must remain above the political interest of the moment.

That is precisely why the true test of a democracy does not come when respect for the Constitution suits us. It comes when the Constitution protects our adversary.

That is why the Constitutional Court exists! The Constitutional Court was not created to be popular. It was not created to confirm the majority. And still less was it created to provide legal comfort to political power.

Its role is precisely the opposite. It must be able to say to those in power:

‘No further.’ Even when Parliament has the votes. Even when the Government has political backing. Even when public opinion is divided. Because a Constitution that works only when those in power agree with it is no longer a Constitution. It is a recommendation. The Court must be the guardian of the Constitution. And the guardian is valuable precisely because it does not consult politicians before applying the rule. From ‘watchdog’ to ‘lapdog’! There is, however, an institutional danger even greater than a single controversial decision: the loss of public trust in the independence of the constitutional arbiter.

A Constitutional Court must not only be independent. It must convince society, through the reasoning and consistency of its decisions, that it is independent. On the day citizens come to believe that constitutional judges interpret the Constitution according to the interests of those who appointed them, the institution loses its most important resource: moral authority.

The guardian of the Constitution risks being perceived not as a ‘watchdog of democracy’, but as a ‘lapdog of politicians’ — stern with those outside the circle of power and docile towards those close to it! A strong Constitutional Court protects even those whom the majority does not like. Because majorities come and go. Governments come and go.

Mayors come and go. Judges come and go. The Constitution must remain. And in a state governed by the rule of law, the final question must never be: ‘Who has the power?’ But: ‘What is power forbidden to do?’

I think it is unnecessary to point out again that all the Constitutional Court’s previous case law UNEQUIVOCALLY enshrines the principle of the non-retroactivity of civil law, under Article 15(2) of the Constitution: ‘The law shall only act for the future, except for the more favourable criminal or contravention law.’ Thus, CCR Decision no. 755/2014 states that the principle of the non-retroactivity of civil law ‘is of constitutional rank and has absolute value, in the sense that the legislature may not establish any derogation’ and explains that the new law applies to legal situations arising after its entry into force, not to ‘past, completed legal situations (facta praeterita)’. This case law was explicitly reiterated by the Constitutional Court, including in Decision no. 134/2024 and in other decisions in 2025.

I know, the constitutional judges who formed the majority for this Decision in the Fritz case will bend over backwards to explain that we are not dealing with a past, completed legal situation, because the three-year ban is still in force. False. The Constitutional Court itself has said that ‘the legislature may not establish any derogation from the principle of the non-retroactivity of civil law’!

And a final court judgment in Fritz’s case must remain legally final, and not be politically changed through a decision of the Constitutional Court! This kind of reasoning will do nothing but confirm the Stalinist dictum: ‘Tell me what you want to do, and I will find the legal reasoning for you’! Or: ‘First we make the arrests, then we come up with the reasons’!