Civil Servants Liability

• Author: Iulian Georgel Savenco
• Pages: 742-747

European Integration - Realities and Perspectives. Proceedings 2015

742

Civil Servants Liability

Iulian Georgel Savenco1

Abstract: Today it is inconceivable life under normal conditions without a set of rules that members of

society have the obligation to respect. Violation of any rules leads to call to account (political, legal) a person

who is guilty of breaking the rules. If civil servant in Romania, as well as for a normal citizen, vi olation of

legal provisions leads to legal liability, because civil servants, even if th ey have a special status, are obliged to

respect them. In this paper we present forms of liability that is committed by civil servants, their particularities

and the way to avoid hiring such liabilities namely professional activity in an efficient way, exacting and

specific to an administration from a democratic society characterized by the rule of law.

Keywords: legal liability; civil service; civil servant; ethics; deontology

1 Introduction

From the beginning, it is necessary to make the distinction between the concepts of responsibility and

accountability in the field of legal sciences. Doctrine (Dabu, 2000, p. 39) defines legal responsibility

as “a legal institution which the legislator expresses vocation of persons legally liable for incidental

facts and legal acts committed directly or indirectly by other people or by things that are in their

administration”. The same author states that unlike responsibility (which he sees as a liability in the

abstract, a capacity, a vocation liability) legal liability is “actual responsibility” which the competent

authority (court or administrative authority) shall determine after procedures, and finishes with a

specific penalty that may be with or without cancellation of the illegal act, return to the previous

situation, establishing damages to compensate for damage, respect of the procedure provided by law in

relation to taking safety measures (Dabu, 2000, p. 39).

According to specialized literature (Iorgovan, 2005, p.636) this distinction between the two concepts is

highlighted in terms of administrative law in several respects. Professor Antonie Iorgovan stated that:

“First, administrative law examines responsibility and liability of state administration, secondly,

administrative law examines this phenomenon in relation to civil servants and, third, administrative

law is concerned by the research of responsibility of citizens to legal norms and to their responsibility

for their violation”.

1Senior Lecturer, PhD, Faculty of Law, “Danubius” University of Galati, Address: 3 Galati Boulevard, 800654 Galati,

Romania, Tel.: +40.372.361.102, fax: +40.372.361.290, Corresponding author: iuliansavenco@univ-danubius.ro. Translation

Otilia Bejenaru.