The State of Emergency in Romanian Constitutional Practice

The Schmittian Dichotomy between state of emergency and normal state constitutes the major inarticulate premise of the functioning of any rule of law system and, moreover, an attempt to grasp the abnormal in normative terms. The starkness of the distinction between these two states is the litmus test of strength and endurance of the Rechtsstaat. Romanian political and constitutional practice for more than a century features a strong predilection for extemporaneous solutions, with little concern for the long term outcomes in constitutional evolution. The main issue dealt in this paper is whether the rather miscellaneous elements of Romanian constitutional practice can be articulated into an emergent constitutional convention – or even customary law – directed towards reshaping the exigencies of the classical Rechtsstaat.