1E9Ct5D

1 Euro = 4,23 Lei1 US dollar = 2,92 Lei1 British Pound = 4,67 LeiII. GENERAL OVERVIEW UPON THE ROMANIA’S POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STRATEGYAfter the Romanian revolution in December 1989, as result to which the communist regime wasreplaced by democracy, Romania pursued a policy of strengthening relations with the UnitedStates and the European Union. Consequently, it joined the European Union on January 1 st , 2007and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on March 29, 2004.Moreover, Romania was already interested in the development of the economic-financial sectorand hade joined the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1972, becoming alsofounding member of the World Trade Organization.The adhesion to the European Union was accompanied by the harmonization of the nationalcommercial and fiscal legislation to the European applicable law. However, this effect should notlead to the conclusion that the European norms are automatically applied in Romania in thesame form as the one established by the EU authorities. Thus, the European legislator simplyprovides the general rules, leaving to the national authorities the ability to transpose the EU’sregulations as they seem apropiate, but only in compliance with those European provisions.As result of the memberships presented above, Romania was submitted to a complex and longreform in several areas, such as the economic, social and judicial domain. However, althoughRomanian legislation is still subject to some changes, the legal framework is increasingly stableand the economy registers a steady growth.III. GENERAL PRESENTATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEMRomania has a civil law system in which the jurisprudence is not source of law and thus, onecourt’s decision is not compulsory for the other competent courts. The main body of laws iscontained in the Civil Code, respectively the Civil Procedure Code, both recently modified anddue to come into force at the end of July 2011.The entire judicial activity is supervised by the Ministry of Justice, which ensures the necessarymanagement conditions for the functioning of the judicial system in Romania. Nevertheless, thejudges act independently when ruling. The independence of the judges arises from the principleof state powers’ separation, and their authority is not subordinated to the legislative or theexecutive power.The Romanian courts of law are organized on 4 levels: lower district courts (in the main citiesbut also in smaller cities), tribunals and specialized tribunals (one in each county), courts ofappeal (16 in the entire country) and the Supreme Court of Justice, each of them havingspecialized judicial panels (civil, commercial, penal, administration and fiscal, labor and socialsecurity) with the possibility of creating other special panels if necessary.4