In this study, based on solid historical and legal documentation, the author argues that the completion of the Romanian unitary national state in 1918 was achieved during a long process of unification: first, the Romanians from the two main countries, Muntenia and Moldova, were united in 1859 in a national state, and then, those from other Romanian historical provinces, which were illegally encroached in the borders of neighbour empires, acted with perseverance for the accomplishment of their national and state unity. The study is divided into four distinct parts. In the first part, the author presents, based on documents, testimonies and memoirs, the idea of Romanian national and state unity as an essential coordinate of the history of the Romanian people. The acts of unification of the Romanian historical provinces with the Romanian Kingdom have legal base on the principle of nationalities and their right to free determination, rights recognized by the victorious powers of the First World War as a basis for solving the territorial aspects generated by the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Tsarist Empire. The acts of union, carried out by popular will expressed in large representative national assemblies, were ratified by acts of national sovereignty by the Romanian State and recognized as such by the 1919–1920 Peace Conference in Paris. The second part emphasizes on the constitutive character of the acts of union with Romania, voted by the constituent national assemblies of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania during 1918. The article contains documentary data and information about the national liberation movement of Romanians from the three provinces, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania, and the actions taken for their unification with the Kingdom of Romania at the end of the First World War. In each of the three Romanian historical provinces, various assemblies in which the participants declare their determination for union were formed. The Moldavian Soldiers’ Congress, attended by 800 delegates, represented a large representative body of all social strata and ethnic groups in Bessarabia. The Congress delegates voted for the political and territorial autonomy of Bessarabia. The Congress also decided to establish the council of the country, a parliamentary body made up of representatives of all the nationalities existing on the territory of Bessarabia. On 14/27 March 1918, the council of the country adopted a resolution in which was proclaimed solemnly the eternal union of Bessarabia „with the mother Romania”.

The social reaction against low severity felonies ask for finding solutions alternative to criminal penalties. The legislator of the new Criminal Code, waiving the institution of absence of the felony’s social danger and replacement of criminal liability, has adopted, for the argument of criminal prosecution, on grounds of the principle of opportunity of exercising criminal action, the institution of waiver of criminal prosecution, and, in terms of substantive criminal law, waiver by the court law of the penalty enforcement. Both institutions, new as concepts in the Romanian criminal legislation, are practically instruments of non-penalization of the actual felony and replacement of criminal liability with an administrative liability, by enforcing administrative sanctions as alternatives for criminal penalties. The regulation of these new institutions, according to the author’s opinion, can however be criticized both in terms of preserving the rights of the injured persons and by the fact that the prosecutor’s assessment powers are far more extended than those of the court of law.

Considering the importance that information technology has acquired in recent years and how it has come to influence the criminal policy at the international level, the author of this study founds it necessary to analyse the subject matter of the offence taking into account this new technological context. Thus, it has been attempted to highlight the need for a reconceptualization of the offence’s subject matter, emphasizing the idea according to which intangible elements may be part of its structure. In support of this thesis, there was reviewed the problem of theft of virtual goods and of certain cybercrimes that reveal the existence of an intangible subject matter which is likely to be interposed between the agent’s behaviour and the social value protected by the rule of incrimination. Last but not least, the author has pointed out a possible consequence of the reconceptualization of the subject matter of the offence, referring thus to the applicability of the supporting cause of self-defence.

Within every form of legal liability, the act inconsistent with the legal rules for which liability is engaged is qualified expressly by law. This study aims to analyze comparatively the offence and the contravention, regarded in the light of recent legislative influences, appeared in the field of criminal law. In order to achieve this intended objective, the structure of the material elaborated by the author envisages the following sequence: the historical evolution of the offence and of the contravention; the definition of the offence and of the contravention; the system of punishments and the sanctioning regime; other aspects of the legal regime of the offence and of the contravention. The analysis covers the following: the stage of legislation, the point of view of the doctrine, as well as the case-law. Finally, there are presented the conclusions reached as a result of this approach and there are formulated de lege ferenda proposals.