On Friday, 10 October 2025, the Romanian Association of Constitutional Law and the Centre for Constitutional Law and Political Institutions (CDCIP), in partnership with CEREFREA Villa Noël, held the 26th edition of the Annual Roundtable, under the theme “Security and the Constitution: National, European and International Legal Dimensions”.
The theme was prompted by the global transformations that keep redefining the relationship between security and law. Security today has political, legal, economic, energy, health, cyber and environmental dimensions, with a direct impact on constitutional prerogatives and the institutional mechanisms of the state. In this setting, the Constitution remains the point of balance of democratic constitutionalism: legality, clarity, necessity, proportionality, effective procedural guarantees, judicial review.
The address of the President of the Constitutional Court
The President of the Constitutional Court of Romania, Prof. Elena-Simina Tănăsescu, highlighted two themes: national security is embedded in the Constitution, as a value, a criterion and an institutional architecture; and national security secures the constitutional order and is a precondition for the existence of the state, which is precisely why it must be “disciplined” by the rule of law. In the paradigm of democratic security, protecting the state and protecting rights are not opposed but complementary.
“Security without liberty is tyranny, and liberty without security is chaos. The Constitution is the instrument that allows us to avoid both extremes; we must therefore have the courage to apply it with rigour and conviction.”
The full text of the address is available on the Constitutional Court’s website. Partner messages were also delivered by Prof. Ștefan Deaconu (University of Bucharest).
The debates
The proceedings unfolded in two sections, Security and the Constitutional Order and Dimensions of Security, and addressed topics such as the defence of the constitutional order, the frontiers of security, the neutrality of the Republic of Moldova, governmental continuity and the powers of constitutional courts.
Special guest: Prof. Gonzalo Ramírez Cleves
The closing session welcomed Prof. Gonzalo Ramírez Cleves (Universidad Externado de Colombia), former judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, editor-in-chief of the journal Derecho del Estado and member of the coordinating team of the 2026 World Congress of Constitutional Law. He presented the objectives and central themes of WCCL 2026 and invited ARDC members to take part in the Bogotá congress, an invitation honoured in July 2026.
The edition closed with the association’s General Assembly. The messages and papers presented were gathered in a report published on the association’s Facebook page.