In a modern society, which faces many challenges, from the perspective of complying with the legal rules in force regarding the payment of taxes and duties owed to the state, in which the electronic means of payment and, mostly, the system of payments in virtual currencies, not very strictly regulated nowadays in any part of the world, it is necessary to take special legal measures to control and reduce socially dangerous deeds, such as tax evasion, money laundering, the appropriation by state officials of immeasurable assets, from doubtful sources, unverified or even illegal. The Romanian society has also not been exempt from such legislative and organizational concerns, especially since the specific challenges of an emerging and developing society and in correlation with good European practices have been much more pronounced. From this perspective, the Romanian legislator has designed an ingenious system of control and disclosure of assets acquired under conditions that exclude the justification of their sources of funding by the beneficiaries of these values, being integrated a legislative and administrative system for submission by the civil servants of some asset declarations and an organizational set for carrying out thorough verifications, by a specialized institution, called the National Integrity Agency (hereinafter referred to as ANI). However, in order for the ANI notifications not to unnecessarily burden the role of the courts of appeal in the country, by the Law No 115/1996 for the declaration and control of the assets of dignitaries, magistrates, of some persons with management and control positions and of civil servants, corroborated with the Law No 144/2007 on the establishment, organization and functioning of the National Integrity Agency and with the Law No 176/2010 on the integrity in exercising public functions and dignities, amending and supplementing the Law No 144/2007 on the establishment, organization and functioning of the National Integrity Agency, as well as amending and supplementing other normative acts, it was conceived an integrated institutional framework, through which ANI notifies the relevant cases from the perspective of unjustified assets to a specialized structure, integrated in the system of each court of appeal, called the commission of investigation of assets, which performs a preliminary verification of the evidence attached to the ANI notification and it can take the measure of notifying the court of law with this notification, if the origin of the assets acquired by the civil servant is unjustified, it may close the case, if the source is justified, or it may order the suspension of the control and the referral of the case to the competent prosecutor’s office. The present study intends to reveal the multiple valences of the acts of one of the most specialized institutions for verification and control of the assets of dignitaries and civil servants from Romania.

In this study, the author intends to emphasize a number of rights by which the procedural availability is manifested in the phase of enforcement, whose purpose is to carry out the provisions contained in the enforceable titles. The initiation of the second phase of the civil trial, by notifying the court executor, as well as the moment of registration of the application for enforcement are of special importance. The principle of availability is also manifested by the abandonment of the enforcement procedure, the waiver of the claimed right, as well as by the possibility of the parties to find, by mutual agreement, convenient ways of exercising rights and of executing obligations, by concluding a mediation agreement.

The national legislation on social security provides for different standard retirement ages for women and men, and this aspect does not contravene the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sex in social security matters, enshrined in Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, nor the principle of equality of citizens, enshrined in Article 16 of the Romanian Constitution. However, failure to apply the more favourable age conditions, laid down for women, to people who have changed their gender identity from woman to man may give rise to discrimination on the grounds of sex. The rationale for maintaining different standard retirement ages is based on the socio-professional disadvantages of women in Romania in relation to men, so that being a woman during their working lives justifies the application of a lower retirement age, regardless of whether at the time of retirement, following the change of gender identity, the beneficiary of the pension is a man, and not a woman. As national law does not regulate this issue, it is for the national courts to interpret social security legislation in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sex. The existence of different standard retirement ages for women and men does not automatically lead to the de jure termination of employment relationships as a result of retirement at different ages, as Article 56 of the Labour Code regulates the possibility of termination of employment relationships, for both sexes, at the same age. Nor does the change in gender identity give rise to different treatment, on the basis of sex, on the date of the termination of employment relationships as a result of the fulfilment of retirement conditions.

The active procedural quality in the direct guarantee action is one of the basic elements of the legal mechanism, regardless of whether we are talking about the active or the passive one. At first glance, we would say that the mechanism of direct action in general should not create too much discussion about its protagonists. However, in legal practice there has been a confusion about the subjects of the direct action, which has led to the questioning of the creditor’s active procedural capacity within the legal mechanism. Through this study, we are trying to shed some light on the practical application of direct collateral action, but also on the interest and procedural quality of the creditor and the debtor within the legal mechanism. Also, since the direct action in classic guarantee does not have a legal basis, unlike the direct action in payment, being derived from the notion of group of contracts, we will show why, in order to avoid contesting the procedural quality of the creditor within the legal mechanism of the direct action under warranty, the contracting parties must expressly insert a clause in the contract giving their consent to the transfer of the right of action to the sub-acquirer, in order to strengthen the transfer of the right of action under the guarantee for hidden defects. At the same time, as the direct action is an exception to the principle of relativity of the effects of the contract, the legislator is obliged to intervene, by introducing expressly some texts in the Civil Code, both in terms of the guarantee for eviction and in terms of the guarantee for hidden defects, so that the direct action in the guarantee finds its practical application. Only in this way will creditors be able to be protected from the effects of the exception of the lack of active procedural capacity, in terms of both guarantees provided by law (hidden defects and eviction).

In this study the author analyzes, from a double theoretical perspective – legal and politological –, the option of the constituent legislators from 1990–1991 for the semi-presidential republic, as a form of separation and balancing of the three powers in the state. Based on a relevant bibliography and on the parliamentary debates within the Constitutional Commission for the drafting of the Constitution and of the Constituent Assembly, the author submits to scientific reflection not only the points of view and arguments raised for discussion in the Constituent Assembly, but also the spirit of the constituent legislator referring to the type of political regime to be enshrined and defended by constitutional norm. There are presented, from the perspective of the constituent legislators, the positive and negative valences of the semi-presidential political regime. After many debates, the Constituent Assembly opted for the semi-presidential republic as a form of government after the overthrow of the old regime in December 1989. The author states that the legislators opted for a semi-presidential model of functioning and balancing powers which should preserve the role and the equal weight of the governing public authorities and which was, in its distinctive features, „very close to the classical parliamentary regime”. What the fathers of the 1991 Constitution wished to avoid – and this is clear from the parliamentary debates in the Constituent Assembly – was the institutionalization of some mechanisms and tools for exercising and balancing powers, which would allow in the future the President of the Republic to prevail in the actual political game, by subjecting the other public authorities. Therefore, the Constituent Assembly of 1990–1991 enshrined the institution of the President of Romania as a mediating factor in the governing mechanism, as well as in the conflicts existing in society, and not as a decision-making authority for governing the country. The author points out that, in the three decades of semi-presidentialism, the powers assumed in the governing process by the President of the Republic have exceeded sometimes the constitutional framework prescribed by the Basic Law, which has fuelled and is still fuelling various proposals to correct the current constitutional framework.