Romania’s government files constitutional challenge after High Court sues over magistrates’ back pay

The dispute

In late March 2026 the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ÎCCJ), led by Lia Savonea, sued the Romanian government and the Ministry of Finance for refusing to allocate funds to cover back wages that magistrates had won through definitive court decisions. The government had initially included almost 5 billion lei for the High Court in the 2026 draft budget, about 50 percent more than the previous year, but later diverted a portion to a 1.1 billion lei social aid package for pensioners and local authorities. The Bucharest Court of Appeal admitted the action on 5 May and ordered the government to pay within ten days of the final ruling, with daily penalties of 1 percent of the outstanding amount (48 million lei, roughly 9 million euros) and a fine of 20 percent of the minimum gross wage for each day of non-compliance.

Government’s constitutional argument

At the end of Thursday’s cabinet meeting, Bolojan said the government had filed its referral to the Constitutional Court (CCR) at the proposal of the Finance Ministry. He argued that the judiciary had usurped the executive’s and legislature’s exclusive role in budgeting.

The court has substituted itself for the executive and legislative powers in budgetary matters and public finance management. The judiciary’s task, according to the law and the Constitution, is to interpret and apply existing laws, and from the government’s lawyers’ perspective the court is exceeding its constitutionally assigned competence, because under Law 500/2002 the drafting of the state budget, budget revisions and the allocation of funds from the budgetary reserve fund are exclusive and sovereign attributes of the executive and legislative powers. The judiciary does not have the technical competence or legitimacy to decide how public money is distributed from a consolidated general budget, obliging the government to allocate sums for a single sector, the payment of back wages in justice. The court directly disrupts the national budgetary balance, an act that represents direct interference in the state’s executive activity.

The note on the cabinet agenda, signed by Secretary General Dan Reșitnec, argued that the court’s intervention could set a precedent for any budget holder to sue the government, further fragmenting the state budget process.

Financial stakes

The ÎCCJ is seeking 4.8 billion lei for salary arrears and penalties, while the Prosecutor’s Office has claims of around 3 billion lei. Together they expose the state budget to about 7.8 billion lei. The daily 1 percent penalty alone works out to 48 million lei (about 9 million euros) per day of delay, a burden that Bolojan described as “enormous.”

Background to the claims

The back wages stem from a 2023 decision by the High Court and the Prosecutor General to increase magistrates’ salaries by 25 percent, applied retroactively from 2018. Over the past two decades magistrates have filed more than 5,000 lawsuits against the state, winning various allowances, including a 40 percent anti-corruption bonus and a 50 percent risk and neuro-psychic stress bonus, that were later incorporated into salary rulings. Six magistrates have also taken Romania to the European Court of Human Rights for delaying the payment of court-ordered wage increases.

Next steps

With the government having filed the constitutional complaint on 2 July, the next hearing at the Bucharest Court of Appeal is set for 9 July. Bolojan noted that his interim cabinet, operating with limited powers, cannot enforce any decision favourable to the High Court even if the appeal fails. The timeline below captures the milestones in the standoff.