Simina Tănăsescu, seen as belonging to the reformist wing of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), has been elected as the Court’s president for a three-year term following a vote held on July 11, Hotnews.ro announced. She succeeds Marian Enache, whose mandate expired earlier this month.
Tănăsescu was appointed to the CCR in 2019 by then-president Klaus Iohannis. Prior to her appointment, she served as a presidential advisor, a role she left after a public controversy involving former CCR judge Petre Lăzăroiu.
Her election comes shortly after the swearing-in of three new Constitutional Court judges – Mihai Busuioc, Csaba Asztalos, and Dacian Dragoș – at Cotroceni Palace.
Tănăsescu is widely regarded as part of the Court’s reform-oriented wing, having previously dissented from majority rulings on key constitutional and legal matters.
In June 2021, she, along with judge Livia Stanciu, issued a separate opinion when the Court ruled that the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (MCV) recommendations on abolishing the Special Section for Investigating Magistrates were not binding on Romanian courts.
Tănăsescu also opposed the 2025 CCR decision that a zoning plan (PUZ) cancellation does not automatically invalidate building permits granted under it, joining a minority of judges, including Stanciu, Mihaela Ciochină and Laura Iuliana Scântei.
Elena Simina Tănăsescu, 56, is a professor of constitutional and European law at the University of Bucharest. She graduated from the University of Bucharest’s Faculty of Law in 1991 and earned her doctorate in France in 1997 at Aix-Marseille III University, with highest honours.
She has held visiting professorships at universities across Europe and Latin America and has worked as director, researcher, or national rapporteur in numerous nationally and internationally funded legal research projects, according to her official biography published on the Constitutional Court’s website.
iulian@romaia-insider.com
(Photo source: Inquam Photos / George Călin)
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