Constitution of Romania

Constitution of Romania
The current version of the Constitution of Romania, as published in the Official Gazette of 31 October 2003, following the approval of amendments in a referendum on 18 October.
Created	21 November 1991
Ratified	8 December 1991
Author(s)	Antonie Iorgovan et al.
Purpose	Replaced the Communist 1965 constitution

The Constitution of Romania was adopted on 21 November 1991. It was approved that same year in a national referendum on 8 December and introduced on the same day. It remains the current fundamental law that establishes the structure of the government of Romania, the rights and obligations of the country's citizens, and its mode of passing laws. It stands as the basis of the legitimacy of the Romanian government.

The constitution was amended once by a referendum on 18 October 2003. The new text took effect on 29 October 2003.

The Constitution of 1991, as revised in 2003, contains 156 articles, divided into 8 titles:

Regulamentul Organic, voted by the respective Assemblies of Moldavia and Wallachia under Imperial Russian occupation in 1831-1832, was the first organic law resembling a constitution ever awarded to the Danubian Principalities. It remained in place until 1858, when the Crimean War removed the two countries from Russian influence and confirmed the rule by several European powers first established by the Treaty of Paris; the Paris Convention of 1858 remained the governing document following the election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as Domnitor over the united countries (1859), but was replaced by Cuza's own organic law, entitled Statutul dezvoltător al Convenţiei de la Paris ("Statute expanding the Paris Convention"), in 1864.

The first constitution of the United Principality (later Kingdom) of Romania was adopted 1 July 1866. After the extension of national territory in 1918, a new constitution was approved 29 March 1923. It was repealed by King Carol II in 1938, when an authoritarian regime formed around the National Renaissance Front adopted a new, corporatist constitution on 27 February this document was, in turn, cancelled in 1940 by the Iron Guard's National Legionary State government. The 1923 constitution was reinstated after the fall of the Ion Antonescu dictatorship in 1944 (see Romania during World War II).