Informat.ro Summary / What changes the new political parties law would bring. The project has been put up for public consultation.

The Permanent Electoral Authority has put out for public consultation a draft law that would replace the current Law no. 14/2003 on political parties. The document proposes increasing the minimum number of founders from three to 100, transferring the registration procedure from the Bucharest Tribunal to the AEP, and introducing more detailed obligations regarding internal organization, transparency, and asset management.

The document retains the definition according to which parties are associations with a political character, but changes their legal qualification: the current law defines them as legal entities of public law, while the draft qualifies them as legal entities of private law, of public utility.

Threshold of 100 founders

​One of the proposed changes concerns the conditions for establishing a political party. While the current regulation allows the establishment of a formation with a minimum of three members, the AEP draft stipulates a list of at least 100 founding members.

According to the draft, founders could be Romanian citizens with voting rights, as well as citizens of other EU member states who have their domicile or residence in Romania and benefit from voting rights. The list should include the identification details of the founders, such as name, date of birth, domicile, identity document details, and signature, and should ensure representation of both sexes.

Registration moved to AEP

The most important procedural change is the transfer of the responsibilities for registering parties from the Bucharest Tribunal to the Permanent Electoral Authority. Under the current law, registration requests are resolved by the Bucharest Tribunal. In the draft, these would be analyzed by panels of five members formed within the AEP, and the institution would decide by resolution within a maximum of 30 days from the submission of the request.

The AEP's decision could be contested at the Bucharest Court of Appeal within ten days of its publication. The court would resolve the complaint within a maximum of ten days from the registration of the case, and the decision would be final. The party would acquire legal personality upon registration in the Register of Political Parties, administered by the AEP. Currently, legal personality is acquired upon the finality of the court's decision.

Reservation of name and symbol

The draft introduces an explicit procedure for verifying and reserving the full name, abbreviated name, and permanent symbol of the party. Individuals intending to establish a party could request the AEP to verify the availability and reserve these elements for 60 days. If the registration request is submitted within that period, the reservation is maintained until the final resolution of the request.

The text also establishes detailed conditions for availability and distinctiveness. The name and symbol could not already be reserved, registered, or assigned to another legal entity and should clearly distinguish themselves from those of parties, alliances, other forms of political association, and organizations of national minorities. Among other things, names or symbols that reproduce or combine national symbols, symbols of other states, international organizations, or religious cults are prohibited.

Additionally, a party that runs without being part of an electoral alliance would be obliged to use the permanent symbol as an electoral sign.

More detailed internal obligations

The draft details the internal organization of parties. The draft retains the obligation for the existence of arbitration committees at both central and territorial levels, already provided for in the current law, but adds that the management control body is a mandatory structure. This would operate at both central and territorial organizations, and at least one of its members should have financial-accounting training.

Party leaders, members of executive bodies, arbitration committees, and control bodies would be elected by secret ballot for terms of no more than four years. Interim positions could not exceed six months. Members of executive bodies could not be part of arbitration committees, and at least one member of the management control body should have financial-accounting training.

The draft also provides for the obligation to adopt and publish an internal code of ethics and integrity. The statute should include, among other things, rules regarding internal structure, organization of territorial organizations, election and revocation of leadership, contributions, disciplinary sanctions, representation of the party, and official communication channels.

For members, detailed lists of rights and obligations are introduced in the law. Among the rights are participation in internal procedures, the right to run for internal positions and in electoral selection procedures, the right to political initiative, and the right to contest internal decisions. Exclusion should be decided by secret ballot, justified, and communicated within a maximum of five days.

Transparency rules Each party should have its own website and publish information regarding organization, leadership, assets, sources of funding, and use of public funds. The site should display at least the statute, political program, name, permanent symbol, central headquarters, territorial organization headquarters, and names of central and local leadership.

In terms of assets, the draft obliges parties to organize records of goods, receivables, debts, guarantees, asset disputes, bank accounts, and ongoing contracts. Annual inventory of assets is provided. Failure to fulfill obligations, including failure to publish mandatory information on the site, failure to adopt the code of ethics, failure to organize asset records, or failure to communicate data to the AEP, could be sanctioned with fines between 20,000 and 80,000 lei.

Dissolution and new inactivity criteria

The draft modifies the rules regarding dissolution for inactivity. Under the current law, inactivity occurs, among other things, if the party has not held any general assembly for five years or if it has not nominated candidates for two successive electoral campaigns, under the conditions provided by law.

In the draft, the period without a general assembly is reduced to four years. Other situations are added: the absence of statutory governing bodies for one year, the absence of a central headquarters or failure to update data about the headquarters for one year, failure to update leadership for one year, failure to submit financial statements for two consecutive years, and inability to conduct financial control for two consecutive years.

Additionally, a party that does not nominate candidates, alone or in an alliance, for two successive elections organized on time could be considered inactive.

Parties and alliances already registered would have six months from the entry into force of the new law to adapt their statutes, political programs, and association protocols. Failure to fulfill this obligation is included in the draft among the cases of dissolution for inactivity.

The draft would enter into force three months after publication in the Official Gazette, but no earlier than January 1, 2027, at which point Law no. 14/2003 would be repealed.

*****Summary created with the help of a data monitoring flow provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data, and images presented have been enhanced with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.