ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Cosmin Vasile and Alina Tugearu, Zamfirescu Racoți Vasile & Partners Attorneys At Law
7.7 Level of Intervention by a Judge Judges carry out an inquisitorial role, participat- ing actively in the investigation and addressing questions to the parties, deciding whether addi- tional evidence is necessary, as well as invok- ing procedural incidents, etc. The judge is also responsible for leading the hearings. Usually, the court will settle issues such as juris- diction, the admission of evidence and proce- dural incidents during the hearing. Sometimes, however, if the discussed issue is the subject of strong debate between the parties, the judge may postpone the issuing of a solution until in chambers. In practice, as a rule, judges issue the solution in their chambers and not in public session. The judge might postpone the issuance of the solu- tion several times. 7.8 General Timeframes for Proceedings Under the general rules of civil procedure, civil proceedings start with an extended exchange of written submissions prior to the setting of the first court hearing, a novelty introduced by the New Civil Procedure Code. After the registration of the claim, the court ensures that all the pro- cedural requirements of the claim are met. If this is not the case, the claimant is given a ten-day term to comply with the law. After the claim has fulfilled all formal conditions, the court proceeds to communicate the claim to the defendant, who is granted a term of 25 days to submit their statement of defence. The statement of defence is then communicated to the claimant, who may submit an answer within ten days following its receipt. The written submission phase is followed by the oral phase, which is comprised of judicial inquiry
and debates. Therefore, within three days of the submission of the answer to the statement of defence, the judge establishes the first court hearing, which will be no later than 60 days from this date. During the judicial inquiry, the court settles all preliminary matters, such as jurisdiction, pay- ment of the stamp fee, admissibility of the claim, etc. Subsequently, the parties submit the pro- posed evidence to the court’s attention, which is then administered according to the court’s ruling. The judicial inquiry is followed by the debates, during which each party states its case and con- siders the evidence that has previously been administered. At the end of the oral debates, the court may instruct the parties to submit written briefs, or the parties may do so in the absence of the court’s instruction. The next phase of civil proceedings is the issu- ance of the judgment, which may be succeeded by the legal means of appeal or by the enforce- ment procedure. The duration of the trial is largely dependent on the complexity of the case, the means of evi- dence to be administered and the preliminary aspects invoked by the parties. As such, a trial in the first tier of jurisdiction may last from a matter of months to several years.
8. Settlement 8.1 Court Approval
When settling a lawsuit, if the parties wish the court to approve their settlement, they need to request the court to issue a ruling acknowledg- ing that settlement. The settlement must be con-
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