The Legislative Procedures and Parliamentary Committees in Romania

The legislative process is comprised by all the operations that are to be performed by an entity that wants a law to be adopted. As in most democracies, in Romania laws are generally initiated by Parliament, the ministries or other authorities concerned. After being written, the draft legislative initiative goes through several stages of approval and consultation with the public opinion and then enters the debate in the Parliament. This paper aims to examine two of the most important aspects of the legislative power in a state. The case studied here is the Romanian one, emphasizing on how these elements operate under the 1991 Constitution, revised in 2003. During the first part we will analyze the path that a legislative proposal has to undertake until it becomes law, and in the second will analyze the organization and functioning of parliamentary committees.