Romanian citizenship is the connection and belonging of a person to the Romanian state, its acquisition being made by birth, by adoption, or upon request.

In the period 2010-2022, the National Authority for Citizenship registered over 935,000 applications regarding Romanian citizenship, being approved or rejected by order of the President of the ANC over 792,000 applications.

According to the activity report of the National Authority for Citizenship, in 2020 alone there were a number of 26,044 registered applications, and their number is increasing every year, due to new requests, but also the fact that there are many registered cases that have not yet been resolved.

Thus, the Control Body of the Romanian Ministry of Justice carried out an investigation which shows that there are very long delays in resolving cases, given that the time limit provided by law for resolving cases is 5 months.

In addition, dysfunctions in the management process, administrative problems, institutional efficiency, and public communication were discovered.

It should be noted that the approval of applications for citizenship is made by order of the President of the National Authority for Citizenship, which establishes by resolution the deadline for resolving the application for granting or regaining citizenship.

The President of the National Authority for Citizenship may request relations from the authorities regarding the fulfillment of the conditions required by law, to be communicated to the Commission within a period not exceeding 60 days and only exceptionally until the first verification deadline of the file which may not exceed 5 months.

If the applicant is declared admitted to the interview, the Commission will draw up a report stating that the legal conditions for granting or, where appropriate, regaining citizenship have been met.

The President of the National Authority for Citizenship, finding the conditions provided by this law fulfilled, issues, within a term not exceeding 3 days, the order for granting or regaining the Romanian citizenship, as the case may be.

However, although the 5-month deadline for settlement is mandatory, in practice it can take up to three years for the Commission to verify that the conditions for granting or regaining citizenship are met.

However, the law of administrative litigation allows any person who considers himself injured in a right or in a legitimate interest, by a public authority, by an administrative act, by the failure to resolve a request within the legal term or by the unjustified refusal of solution of a request, to address the court to request the annulment of the act, the recognition of the claimed right or legitimate interest and the reparation of the damage caused to him.

Thus, in case of exceeding the term of 5 months from the registration of the application for obtaining citizenship, the injured party can address the court to request the obligation of the National Citizenship Authority to resolve the application as soon as possible, the authority being obliged to comply with the court decision.

Author: Attorney at law, Cristian Badea, Law Office Grecu & Partners.