The Legal Regime of Expropriation in Romania

• Author: Vasilica Negrut
• Position: Professor, PhD, Dean of Faculty of Law, 'Danubius' University of Galati, Romania
• Pages: 5-11

JURIDICA

5

Public Law

The Legal Regime of Expropriation in

Romania

Vasilica NEGRUŢ

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Abstract: The exercise of ownership of (private) property is not absolute, it may be subject to some

restrictions, limitations. These limitations may be determined by the public interest and they may

even lead to the loss of property through expropriation for public utility. The legal institution is being

analyzed both by experts in civil law and by the administrative experts, and the expropriation for

public utility, a measure having the exception feature granted by the Constitution and the Civil Code,

is widely debated in the recent years, given the need to achieve some works that serve to the public

utility. In this study we propose, based on the law, doctrine and jurisprudence, to deepen the legal

regime of expropriation for the public utility. We specify that we consider only the legislative act that

establishes the general legal framework of expropriation, which is Law no. 33 of 1994

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Keywords: expropriation; public domain; public property; legal regime

1. Introduction. Short Considerations on the Expropriation Evolution

in Romania

The expropriation, a way of establishing the public domain based on a particular procedure,

regulated by an organic law, experienced, over time, an evolution, most of the times,

imposed by the contextual social development and it has depended on, as shown in the

specialized literature, “the way how it is seen the property itself” (Podaru, 2011, p. 151).

Thus, in ancient Greece, the expropriation was decided by th e community, while in ancient

Rome the expropriation was initially unthinkable, the property being considered an absolute

right over the assets. Later, however, the expropriation for the case of public utility h as

been explicitly regulated in the imperial constitutions. (Podaru, 2011, p. 152)

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Professor, PhD, Dean of Faculty of Law, “Danubius” University of Galati, Romania. Address: 3

Galati Boulevard, 800654 Galati, Romania. Tel.: +40.372.361.102, fax: +40.372.361.290.

Corresponding author: vasilicanegrut@univ-danubius.ro.

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Republished in Official Monitor no. 472 of 05.07.2011.

AUDJ, vol. 10, no. 2/2014, pp. 5-11