Considerations Regarding The New Legislative Modifications And Amendments In The Matter Of Civil Status Acts

This paper aims at signaling the future legislative modifications and amendments in the matter of civil status acts, still at under discussions in the Bill for the modification and completion of Law no. 119/1996 regarding civil status acts, republished3 , as well as for the abrogation of the Government Ordinance no. 41/2003 pertaining to the administrative modification and assignment of individuals’ names . 4 The Bill has been subject to public debate and later approved by the Superior Council of the Magistracy.The new normative act aims at creating the legal framework for the implementation of the project regarding the creation of the Integrated Computer System for the Issue of Civil Status Acts (SIIEASC), carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which will establish the electronic form for drawing up civil status acts, while ensuring the required computer network at a national level. The purpose of the new regulations is to harmonize the Romanian legislation in the field with the European legislation, given that Romania’s adhesion to the European Union in 2007 implicitly triggered an increase of the international private law legal relationships. The bill aims at decentralizing certain activities by the transfer of attributions from the competence of public central administration to the competence of local public administration authorities, which will result in a decrease of the time required to settle a petition regarding civil status acts. Furthermore, the new law will also include the provisions of Government Ordinance no. 41/2003 for the administrative assignment and change of individuals’ names, a normative act that it will also abrogate. To this purpose, the bill stipulates a simpler procedure for changing a name and, at the same time, a shorter time for this endeavor and, with regards to the first name, parents won’t be allowed to register more than three first names for their children.