The Third Republic — Volume I

Contents

1. PREFACE
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
3. PROLOGUE. Sovereigntism: the appearance of a word, the birth of a concept, the making of a movement
4. PART ONE — THE RADIOGRAPH. Romania at the end of a world
5. Chapter 1. Thirty-six years of “reforms”: the anatomy of a debasement
   • 1.1. A word that has died: “reform”
   • 1.2. Why the word “reform” can no longer be saved
   • 1.3. A diagnosis two and a half millennia old
   • 1.4. What refounding is
   • 1.5. The precedents: refounding as an institution of constitutional history
   • 1.6. The predictable objection and its answer
6. Chapter 2. The captured state: the separation of powers as fiction
   • 2.1. The dead letter of the present Constitution and the life led under its rule
   • 2.2. The standard set by Plato’s Laws: the servants of the law
   • 2.3. Men are not bad; the architecture of institutions is
   • 2.4. The confirmation of contemporary political science
   • 2.5. How abnormal Romania is: the European measure
7. Chapter 3. The three faces of power: an anthropological reading of the Romanian state
   • 3.1. Beyond Montesquieu: the elementary sources of domination
   • 3.2. What is power? What is the state? — the working definitions
   • 3.3. The democratisation of knowledge — the fourth brake upon power
   • 3.4. What follows from this triptych of power
   • 3.5. The testimony of the chronicle: the virtual judge and the birth of the new god
   • 3.6. From the “magical society” to the refounding
8. Chapter 4. The stress test: the pandemic as revealer
   • 4.1. What one sees when the earthquake comes: the pandemic as a test of the state
   • 4.2. The physician of free men and the physician of slaves: a page from Plato
   • 4.3. The lesson that was not learned
   • 4.4. From revealer to developed photograph: what the pandemic showed us
9. Chapter 5. The economy of dispossession: resources, assets, royalties, gold
   • 5.1. The inventory of a squandered inheritance
   • 5.2. The anatomy of the mechanism
   • 5.3. The voice of the chronicle: what dispossession looked like live
   • 5.4. Gold and the lesson of history
   • 5.5. From the inventory of damage to the constitutional principle
10. Chapter 6. The school, the hospital, the family, the altar: the undermined foundations
    • 6.1. The four springs
    • 6.2. Two classic testimonies about the school
    • 6.3. On the closing, at one and the same time, of the school and the altar
    • 6.4. Closing the radiograph: the state turned against its own springs
11. Chapter 7. Chronicle of a battle: Romanian justice seen from within
    • 7.1. A declaration of interest: from where I view the judiciary
    • 7.2. The anatomy of tutelage: justice under the intelligence services
    • 7.3. The anatomy of corporatism: the justice that refuses to answer
    • 7.4. Who investigates the investigators: the solution in Book XII of the Laws
    • 7.5. The witness’s evidence: why I nevertheless believe in judges
12. Chapter 8. The end of a world as diagnosis and as opportunity: from the Second to the Third Republic
    • 8.1. What is actually ending in today’s world
    • 8.2. Pages from the chronicle: the ending seen live
    • 8.3. Sovereigntism and extremism: a necessary clarification
    • 8.4. The historical window: why it is possible now
    • 8.5. The death of the Second Republic: 6 December 2024
    • 8.6. Why the 2024 elections were actually annulled
    • 8.7. The anatomy of a juridical death: the arguments from file 8069/2/2024*
    • 8.8. Counting the republics: why the Third comes next
13. Chapter 9. Eminescu, the spiritual father of Romanian sovereigntism
    • 9.1. On a new word and an old father
    • 9.2. On the laws that can proceed only from the people
    • 9.3. On the national economy as the foundation of liberty
    • 9.4. On the “Carpathians” Society — or what a sovereigntist avant la lettre looked like under the surveillance of the satraps of the “colony” Romania
    • 9.5. On the “coincidence” of 28 June 1883
    • 9.6. On what he bequeaths us
14. Chapter 10. Economic sovereignty in the tradition of Romanian thought — from Dimitrie Cantemir to Mihail Manoilescu
    • 10.1. Cantemir and Bălcescu: the country’s wealth, liberty and national unity
    • 10.2. Petre S. Aurelian: industrialisation as the guarantee of independence
    • 10.3. Eminescu: the national principle and economic sovereignty
    • 10.4. Virgil Madgearu: interdependence without subordination
    • 10.5. Mihail Manoilescu: the productive forces and national autonomy
    • 10.6. Conclusion: sovereignty as the power of economic decision
15. PART TWO — THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFOUNDING. “The Sovereignty Constitution”
16. Chapter 11. Why a full revision and not patches: the philosophy of the project and the limits of revision
    • 11.1. The birth of a revision project
    • 11.2. The explanatory memorandum: the official diagnosis
    • 11.3. “Slaves of the laws, that we may be free”: why laws and not providential men
    • 11.4. The Article 152 test: refounding within the limits of revision
    • 11.5. The method of analysis: text, reasons, comparison, effects
17. Chapter 12. The battle of the opinions: the Legislative Council, between its calling and the censorship of the constituent power
    • 12.1. Two opinions, two stories: 2021 and 2024
    • 12.2. What the Legislative Council is and is not
    • 12.3. Point-by-point rebuttal: the five families of criticism
    • 12.4. The meaning of this battle of opinions
18. Chapter 13. The inviolable citizen: fundamental rights strengthened
    • 13.1. Balance, loyal cooperation and binding force (Art. 1)
    • 13.2. Human dignity in the face of the new powers (Art. 22)
    • 13.3. Individual liberty and the fair trial (Arts. 21, 23, 24, 27, 28)
    • 13.4. The effects of the block of rights: what liberty costs and what it is worth
19. Chapter 14. The social foundations: education, health, the family, property
    • 14.1. The constitutional percentages: 6% for education, 9% for health (Arts. 32, 34)
    • 14.2. Medical consent at constitutional rank (Art. 34 (4))
    • 14.3. The family and the child (Arts. 48, 49)
    • 14.4. The citizen’s wealth and cash (Art. 44 (10))
    • 14.5. The right to elect and to be elected; administrative accountability (Arts. 37, 52)
20. Chapter 15. Representation and accountability: Parliament
    • 15.1. The 1% threshold: representation made whole again (Art. 62)
    • 15.2. The recall of the parliamentarian: the mandate under control (Art. 70 (3))
    • 15.3. Immunity reduced to votes and opinions (Art. 72 (3))
    • 15.4. The citizens’ initiative within citizens’ reach (Arts. 74, 75)
    • 15.5. The sanction of parliamentary silence: the end of legislating by “sleep” (Art. 75 (2))
    • 15.6. Parliamentary appointments and transparency (Art. 65)
21. Chapter 16. The reins of the executive: the President, the Government and the end of the ordinance-king
    • 16.1. The President re-framed (Arts. 82, 83, 94, 97, 103)
    • 16.2. Linz confirmed: the perils of presidentialism
    • 16.3. The end of the ordinance-king (Arts. 108, 115)
    • 16.4. The state of fixed-term offices (Art. 116 (3))
22. Chapter 17. The army, the services and the Supreme Council of National Defence: the constitutional root of demilitarisation (Arts. 118–119)
    • 17.1. Why here, why at constitutional level
    • 17.2. Demilitarisation raised to constitutional rank (Art. 118 (4))
    • 17.3. Foreign troops, command and the ceiling: military sovereignty in three paragraphs (Art. 118 (5)–(7))
    • 17.4. The Supreme Council reconstituted: knowledge under mandate (Art. 119 (2))
    • 17.5. What will follow in Chapter 23: the map anticipated
23. Chapter 18. Justice refounded: the magistrates, the Superior Council, the Constitutional Court
    • 18.1. “Constans et perpetua voluntas”: two diseases and a single treatment
    • 18.2. The guarantees: the untouchable judge (Arts. 124, 125, 126, 132)
    • 18.3. Prosecutors leave the magistracy: the state’s advocates (Arts. 132–134)
    • 18.4. Accountability: the end of impunity (Arts. 52, 133, 134)
    • 18.5. The Constitutional Court: juridical legitimacy, real force (Arts. 142, 143, 146, 147)
    • 18.6. The effects of the block of judicial norms
24. Chapter 19. The “economic” Constitution: the nation’s resources, the national interest and the world outside
    • 19.1. The royalty with a European benchmark (Art. 136 (4))
    • 19.2. The sovereign interest in international relations (Title VI: Arts. 148–149)
    • 19.3. The Court of Auditors, currency and the rest of the economic arsenal
    • 19.4. The economic effects of the Sovereignty Constitution
25. Chapter 20. The city below: local administration refounded
    • 20.1. Baronry as a form of government
    • 20.2. The three keys of the new Article 120
    • 20.3. The mayor and Montaigne: the man is not the office
    • 20.4. The effects: politics relearned from below, from villages and towns
26. PART THREE — THE LAWS OF THE REFOUNDING
27. Chapter 21. The Sovereignty Act — the mother law
    • 21.1. The history of an initiative
    • 21.2. The architecture of the law: four chapters, one principle
    • 21.3. The lesson the mother law left us
28. Chapter 22. The laws of the refounding: the blocks of the mother law, one by one
    • 22.1. The method of this chapter
    • 22.2. The rule-of-law block: never again 2020 (Arts. 1–3)
    • 22.3. The health block: consent and non-discrimination (Arts. 4–5)
    • 22.4. The protection of the minor (Art. 6)
    • 22.5. The amendments to the Civil Code: the inviolability of the mind and property restored (Arts. 7–8)
    • 22.6. The amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure: the sanction without which everything remains literature (Arts. 9–10)
    • 22.7. A free Official Gazette and jurisdiction over the platforms (Arts. 11–12)
    • 22.8. The electoral block (Art. 13)
    • 22.9. The green block (Arts. 14–16)
    • 22.10. The economic locks (Arts. 17–22)
    • 22.11. The national-safety block: the services (Arts. 23–29)
29. Chapter 23. The Act on the demilitarisation of the services — the state turned back towards the citizen
    • 23.1. The Romanian anomaly: militarised services in a civilian Europe
    • 23.2. On the origins of the System: from the Prince’s agency to today’s caste
    • 23.3. “Securistan”, reckoned year by year: the arithmetic of a caste
    • 23.4. The five operations the law performs
    • 23.5. The comparative check: Europe’s civilian services
    • 23.6. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Guardians without gold: the ancient prohibition at the foundation of the new law
    • 23.7. The anthropological reading: why demilitarisation is the key to the whole triptych
    • 23.8. The security objection and its answer
30. Chapter 24. The Green Romania Act — the forest as the wealth of generations
    • 24.1. The forest as a constitutional problem
    • 24.2. The three prohibitions and their sanctions
    • 24.3. The comparative check — and the tension with Union law, treated honestly
    • 24.4. The effects of the law for the forest and for people
31. Chapter 25. The Criminal Code and the electoral laws — sanction, transparency, representation
    • 25.1. Criminal law as the ultima ratio of the refounding
    • 25.2. The new offences: the annotated catalogue
    • 25.3. The electoral laws: counting in the open
    • 25.4. The meaning of the whole criminal-electoral package
32. Chapter 26. The Solidarity Act — the taxation of large businesses and great fortunes
    • 26.1. The state of affairs that makes this law necessary
    • 26.2. The mechanism: the turnover tax on large taxpayers
    • 26.3. The tax on great fortunes
    • 26.4. Two and a half centuries of debate: the great economists on taxing wealth
    • 26.5. Offshore: the Black Sea gas back into the contract
    • 26.6. The effects of the law
33. Chapter 27. The George Act and the malpractice initiative — justice for the patient
    • 27.1. A name, not a number
    • 27.2. What the law changes for the patient
    • 27.3. The objection of defensive medicine and the answer
34. Chapter 28. The Act on the referendum and the citizens’ initiative — the keystone
    • 28.1. Direct democracy as a dead institution
    • 28.2. The proposed mechanism: the closed circuit of the popular will
    • 28.3. The comparative check: the systems that have been doing this for a century
    • 28.4. The democratisation of knowledge: the anthropological reading
    • 28.5. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”: why this is the keystone
35. PART FOUR — THE EFFECTS. Romania refounded
36. Chapter 29. The institutional effects: the state rebalanced
    • 29.1. The method: how a refounding is measured
    • 29.2. The effect upon legislating: from inflation to rigour
    • 29.3. The effect upon the balance of powers: the end of the permanent match
    • 29.4. The effect upon justice: trust through double discipline
    • 29.5. The effect upon the “fourth power”: light as an institution
    • 29.6. The effect upon the balance of the three elementary powers
    • 29.7. The democratic effect: the citizen back inside the building
37. Chapter 30. The economic and social effects: figures, scenarios, people
    • 30.1. The budget of the refounding: the revenues
    • 30.2. The budget of the refounding: the costs and risks — declared, not concealed
    • 30.3. The social effects: what changes in people’s lives
    • 30.4. The counterfactual scenario: the cost of not refounding
38. Chapter 31. The objections and the answers
    • 31.1. “It is anti-European and will take Romania out of the EU”
    • 31.2. “It is constitutional populism — too much referendum, too little mediation”
    • 31.3. “The penalties are draconian; criminal law is not made with an axe”
    • 31.4. “Who guarantees that the new institutions will not be captured in their turn?”
    • 31.5. “It is too much at once; reform is made gradually”
    • 31.6. “Who are you to refound the state?”
39. Chapter 32. Romania refounded in a Europe searching for itself
    • 32.1. Europe’s family quarrel
    • 32.2. What Romania can offer this European debate
    • 32.3. The scenarios of the relationship between a refounded Romania and the Union
40. Chapter 33. The road of the refounding: signatures, referendum, constitutional calendar
    • 33.1. The juridical map of the road
    • 33.2. Machiavelli’s warning — and why we go forward all the same
    • 33.3. The realistic calendar
    • 33.4. What the reader of this book can do, concretely
    • 33.5. “A republic — if you can keep it”: the cornerstone
41. EPILOGUE. For those who can still hope
42. NOTE ON THE EDITION AND THE CRITICAL APPARATUS
43. NOTE ON THE SOURCES
44. ANNEX I — Commentary on the fifty points of revision
45. ANNEX II — The laws of the refounding: an article-by-article guide
    • II.1. The Sovereignty Act (v. 20) — the essential provisions
    • II.2. The Solidarity Act — the fiscal provisions
    • II.3. The Act on the referendum and the citizens’ initiative — the provisions of direct democracy
    • II.4. The Demilitarisation Act — the provisions, across the five statutes
    • II.5. The George Act / the malpractice initiative — the provisions
    • II.6. The Green Romania Act — the provisions
    • II.7. Amendment of the Criminal Code — the table of offences
    • II.8. Amendment of Act 208/2015 — the electoral table
46. ANNEX III — A chronology of the refounding
47. ANNEX IV — A short glossary of the refounding
48. ANNEX V — A synthetic comparative study: the institutions of the refounding in the mirror of Europe
    • Switzerland
    • Germany
    • France
    • Italy
    • The United Kingdom
    • The Nordic states
    • Poland and Hungary
    • Spain, Portugal, Ireland, other benchmarks
    • The annex’s conclusion
49. ANNEX VI — Twelve questions from the signature tables
50. BIBLIOGRAPHY
    • I. Classical sources
    • II. Modern and contemporary authors
    • II bis. Romanian history
    • II ter. Literature (the dystopian and satirical parallels)
    • III. Romanian legal doctrine
    • IV. Specialist studies and articles
    • V. Electronic editions used for the double verification of quotations
51. ANNEX TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY — “The President and the Press”
    • John F. Kennedy’s address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association
52. What the reader will find at aTreiaRepublica.ro