The ECHR rejected the complaints of five judges regarding the staggered payment of salary arrears won in court

Riana Gegiu

22 October 2026, 10:24

Current Affairs

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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) dismissed as manifestly ill-founded and, consequently, inadmissible, the applications lodged by five judges and former judges against Romania. The applicants challenged the delayed and staggered payment of certain salary-related entitlements established by judicial decisions.

The sums represented entitlements deemed discriminatory in comparison with those granted to other judges, prosecutors, and public officials. The applicants argued that the State had not fully enforced the judgments by which it had been ordered to make the payments.

The ECHR reaffirmed that a lack of funds cannot, in principle, constitute a justification for failure to enforce a judicial decision. In the exceptional circumstances examined, however, the Court found that the Romanian authorities had adopted successive measures for the gradual payment of the sums, in the context of severe economic and fiscal constraints.

The European judges considered that, although the delays had been considerable, they had not affected the essence of the applicants’ right to obtain enforcement of the judgments and had not imposed an excessive individual burden on them. The ECHR concluded that the European Convention on Human Rights had not been violated.

Context: before the ECHR decision, the dispute over the payment of judges’ outstanding salary entitlements reached the High Court of Cassation and Justice

Before the ECHR decision, the High Court of Cassation and Justice postponed on several occasions delivering its ruling in the case concerning the obligation of the Government and the Ministry of Finance to pay outstanding salary entitlements established by court judgments. The financial stakes were estimated at approximately 5 billion lei, while the enforcement deadline set by the Bucharest Court of Appeal was 10 days from the judgment becoming final, with penalties of 1% for each day of delay and a fine of 20% of the gross minimum wage per day.

Also, in parallel with the appeal on points of law, the Government requested that the Constitutional Court and the CJEU be notified, challenging the possibility for courts to impose budget allocations and arguing that the budget falls within the powers of the executive and legislative branches. At an earlier stage, the High Court of Cassation and Justice indicated that payment could be made either in cash or by issuing securities with a later maturity date, and the court pointed out that, for some debts five years old, ancillary amounts could account for a very large share of the principal amount.