Implicațiile crizei sanitare asupra procesului civil

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the Coronavirus was an extreme event, with a massive impact on economic and social life and, implicitly, on the justice system, which, in this context, revealed the limits of its functioning in such conditions. This is because the logic of the fight against COVID-19 collided with the logic of the normal, natural course of the judicial activity. Romania, as most of the world’s countries, took firm measures to combat the pandemic, on January 16, 2020, the state of emergency being established throughout the country. The measures of first urgency and with direct applicability initially taken and then, when the state of emergency was extended and after that, when the state of alert was established, naturally also concerned the field of justice. The study follows and analyses the normative provisions that instituted a series of measures with immediate applicability intended to ensure the functioning of justice – with special regard to the civil process – emphasizing, on each occasion, the deficiencies and shortcomings of these measures, that, with all the – limited – improvements brought in each new stage, they were not of a nature to reach their purpose. The main conclusion of the study is that the judicial system was not and it is not prepared, normatively and logistically, to properly face the challenges generated by exceptional situations, such as the pandemic caused by COVID-19, and it is proposed to improve the regulations regarding the judicial organization and the conduct of judicial activity, more precisely, the conduct of civil and criminal proceedings. In this context, the arbitral experience is presented and it is recommended the adoption of some regulations and procedures that have proven their viability in the arbitral process, both before and during the pandemic. Last but not least, it is insisted on the need to adapt, beyond the exceptional situations that may occur, of the civil process to modern conditions, in which the use of technological means is increasingly expanding.