The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorin Grindeanu, on Wednesday filed with the Constitutional Court a request for the resolution of a constitutional legal conflict between Parliament and the Government triggered by the issuance of Emergency Ordinance No. 38/2026 on the SAFE Programme.

Grindeanu is asking the CCR to establish the existence of this constitutional legal conflict between Parliament and the Government and to determine the course of action to be followed in order to restore constitutional order.

“The constitutional legal conflict is generated by two distinct unconstitutional actions by the Government of Romania, which converge in their effects: the adoption and submission for publication of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 38/2026 after Parliament withdrew its confidence through a no-confidence motion (5 May 2026), and its publication in the Official Gazette on 8 May 2026 by a Government which, under Article 110(4) of the Constitution, was no longer empowered to do anything other than manage current public affairs, with the categorical exclusion of any power to exercise delegated law-making; the regulation, through Government Emergency Ordinance No. 38/2026, of legislative solutions that were already under parliamentary procedure — under debate or even on the agenda of plenary sittings in the Chamber of Deputies and, respectively, the Senate — thus turning the Government from a delegated legislator, whose democratic mandate had just been withdrawn, into a legislative authority competing with Parliament, in abandonment of its constitutional role and, at the same time, in disregard of the duty of constitutional loyalty towards Parliament, as the country’s sole legislative authority,” the referral states.

According to it, an analysis of the procedural chronology and of the content of the normative acts involved shows that the Government proceeded to “substantially” expand the initial draft of the government emergency ordinance on the morning of 5 May, the day of the no-confidence motion debate and vote, by adding 12 new articles.

“The explanatory memorandum to the law approving it expressly acknowledges that ‘the additions made during the Government meeting to the Emergency Ordinance were prompted by the importance and urgency of the regulations, combined with the possibility that, in the event of the no-confidence motion against the Executive being adopted, it would no longer be able to issue emergency ordinances during the interim period’. In conclusion, through its conduct, the Government not only intervenes in an area already under parliamentary debate, but also anticipates and substitutes the outcome of the legislative process, diminishing Parliament’s deliberative role and affecting the constitutional balance between the powers of the state, enshrined in Article 1(4) of the Constitution,” the referral further explains. AGERPRES