The Right to Protest - A Constitutional Right Exercised on the Fringe of Law

AuthorLiliana Niculescu
PositionAssistant Professor, PhD, Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, The Faculty of Juridical, Social, and Political Sciences, Romania
Pages43-47
ISSN: 2067 9211 Legal and Administrative Sciences in the New Millennium
43
The Right to Protest - A Constitutional
Right Exercised on the Fringe of Law
Liliana Niculescu1
Abstract: The right to protest is fundamental to the health of a democratic thinking. It represents one of the
way of expressing the freedom of thought, manifestation, and association. In Romania, the recent events
regarding the protest actions, mostly against the political class, have been characterized by a series of distinct
features compared to the traditional movements: the transformation of the cyber space into a public space of
contestation, the use of social networks for organizing and mobilizing the persons involved in such actions
called spontaneous, the absence of an assumed leadership - all these characteristics has established that this
constitutional right to protest, recognized since the Antiquity, was exercised on the fringe of law This right
represents one of the legal instruments by which the citizens can transmit to authorities their disagreement about
their actions or interests.
Keywords: protest; democracy; action; freedom of thought; freedom of association
Introduction
Contesting and protest movements are indispensable tools for a functioning democracy. Before the right
to vote, we had the right to protest. The protest is a means of report the government, a means of forming
a community and having a voice that might be powerless by itself. But, together with other voices, this
one voice becomes strong. This is a means of amplifying a message and, at the same time, represents a
means of physical resistance. A strong
In Romania, the recent events regarding the protest actions, mostly against the political class, have been
characterized by a series of distinct features compared to the traditional movements: the transformation
of the cyber space into a public space of contestation, the use of social networks for organizing and
mobilizing the persons involved in such actions called spontaneous, the absence of an assumed
leadership - all these characteristics has established that this constitutional right to protest, recognized
since the Antiquity, was exercised on the fringe of law. In this respect, the recent decision of the High
Court of Cassation and Justice came out in support of the regulation of some slippages found on the
occasion of the latest mass protest in August 2018.
In these circumstances, we consider appropriate to analyze the evolution of the protest in Romania,
beginning with the events of ‘89 up to now, taking into account the legal regulation in the field and the
great influence of the development of information technology in the recent years on the exercise of the
right to protest.
1 Assistant Professor, PhD, Dunarea de Jos University of Galaţi, The Faculty of Juridical, Social, and Political Sciences,
Romania, Address: 47 Domneasca Street, Tel.: 0040 0336 130 108, Romania, Corresponding author: liliana.niculescu@ugal.ro.

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