News and Controversies Regarding the Contravention Liability of University Staff According to the Provisions of the Romanian Law on Higher Education

Objectives of the study - In Title V of Law no. 199/2023, the law on higher education, the legislator intended to regulate a form of liability that can be incurred by higher education personnel, formulated under the title "Legal liability". Unlike Law no. 1/2011 which specifically regulated forms of disciplinary, patrimonial and contravention liability, the current law on higher education, in art.259 does not specify in a concrete way what types of liability the legislator wanted to take into account at the time of drafting this normative act. However, in the existing wording, in some paragraphs of the aforementioned article, certain unlawful conducts that fall within the scope of the contravention are criminalized, conducts that can also be committed by higher education personnel. The research methods used – in this documentation we used the analytical and synthesis method. Results and implications of the study – Even if the legislator's intervention to amend the entire Article 259 is a recent one (the law entered into force at the beginning of September 2023 and the amendment took place in January 2024), we cannot fail to notice the haste with which this intervention was made. Even after this amendment, difficulties in law enforcement will arise in practice. This is because, on the one hand, it is provided in art.259 para. (6) that for the contraventions under para. (5), the finding shall be made by police officers or agents within the Ministry of Internal Affairs "...with competences in the field" and on the other hand, the finding is made at the "reasoned request from the higher education institution". The study concludes with the advancement of a proposal for a ferenda law to amend this article.