INFRACŢIUNILE CONTRA SIGURANŢEI CIRCULAŢIEI PE CÃILE FERATE ÎN NOUL COD PENAL

The criminal offences against the safety of railway traffic are provided for in the new Criminal Code under Title VII “Criminal Offences against Public Safety”, Chapter I. Taking into account the critical observations expressed in our doctrine, starting with the year 2006, the lawmaker has amended and supplemented both two criminal offences as regards their names, and the content of the others. Regarding the content of criminal offences, we mention that the amendments made refer both to the capacity of active subject and to that of passive subject, which this time may belong to the employees of both State-owned and private-owned operators. Nevertheless, when identifying the most important social values and, subsequently, protecting them by means of criminal law rules, the lawmaker did not take into consideration the current legislation, both domestic and of the European Union regarding the safety of railway traffic and transports. Thus, the most important European and domestic regulations in this field, which had to be taken into consideration in the activity of legal individualization of criminal law penalties, are the Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 (the Railway Safety Directive) and Law no. 55/2006 on railway safety. The critical observations and the proposals made by the author refer precisely to the need to adapt the Romanian railway safety legislation to the European Union legislation.