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Promo-LEX found that the bailiffs and the courts of law do not apply evenly the legislation when domestic violence restraining orders are violated.

This was revealed by the review of court judgements on restraining order violations.

According to Lilia Poting, a Promo LEX lawyer, “We have uneven practices of bringing to account perpetrators for violating the domestic violence restraining orders. In many cases the perpetrators were not held liable, and the victims had restraining orders on paper only, without being actually protected. The bailiffs do not interpret correctly the provisions of the legislation and refuse to start a trial on administrative offences on the basis of Article 318 of the Code of Administrative Offences for the violation of domestic violence restraining orders.”

The district police officer and the social worker are responsible of informing the perpetrator about the application of the restraining order and of taking action if it was violated or not executed, except for the protective measures foreseen in Article 314/4 (2) (e) and (f) of the Civil Procedure Code, which falls under the responsibility of bailiffs.

For the failure to comply with or for violating the protective measures imposed by order, the perpetrator shall be sanctioned in the following way: the first time – as for an administrative offence, according to the Code of Administrative Offences, while for recurrent violations after being already sanctioned – the perpetrator shall be indicted with a crime, according to Article 320 of the Criminal Code.

The bailiffs are the ones who have the competence to ascertain the failure to comply with any court judgement, including the restraining order, regardless of the authority responsible of enforcing those judgements.

More details see here, the information is in Romanian language.