The amendments brought by the Implementation Law of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 76/2010, according to which complaints against public procurement procedures are to be lodged exclusively with the National Council for Solving Complaints (CNSC), seem to emerge from the lawmaker’s constant desire to provide the necessary leverage for expediting the resolution of disputes that hold back the public procurement system. Although an acceleration of dispute settlement is to follow, the focus should be placed on the balance between such measures and the need to ensure fundamental guarantees of a fair trial.

It is true that public procurement complaints are sometimes used in practice as a means to delay the course of procedures; it is equally true, nevertheless, that many disputes are purely technical in essence. Correct decisions on disputes of this sort are possible only after reading an expert report, or after hearing an expert witness. As a result, in view of the extremely short time frame in which the CNSC has to issue an award (20 days from being assigned the public procurement case), it seems that fully informed decisions are very hard to be reached.

Furthermore, it is a known fact that the law does not require that all CNSC members be law school graduates. This being the case, it is important that parties are also allowed an oral argument in support of their claims, particularly in what regards highly complex disputes – as opposed to courtroom proceedings, CNSC rarely offers such a possibility.

In light of the examples above, the ideal long-term course of action for a swifter settlement of public procurement disputes entails mechanisms of a structural nature– more specialized judges, more available courtrooms etc.

Moreover, any solution entrusting the settlement of a certain type of disputes to the sole authority of an organism such as CNSC is bound to raise constitutionality issues – article 21 of the Romanian Constitution, upholding precisely the principle of free access to justice, reads that “special administrative jurisdictions are optional and free of charge”. Since the jurisdiction of this sort of organisms is optional, this would entail that general jurisdiction is entrusted to ordinary courts.