the prosecutor in the case. Longer extensions
may be granted by the court.

According to the Romanian press, which has commented on the way that the
new codes have served the people, examples of poor performance are
usually attributable to the inertia of the bureaucracy. When citizens'
rights are withheld, red tape or over-worked personnel are most
frequently to blame. Occasionally, however, officials are unresponsive
to individuals' requests and provide services grudgingly without an
adequate justification for delay.

Courts

The Constitution charges the judiciary with the defense of socialist
order and the rights of citizens in the spirit of respect for the law.
It also gives the courts responsibility for correcting and educating
citizens who appear before them, to prevent further violations of the
law. Party leader Nicolae Ceausescu, in a 1970 pronouncement, indicated
that the party leadership may feel that the law should stress to an even
greater extent the defense of the state and society rather than the
rights of the individual. According to his statement, the first
obligation of the courts is to collaborate with the militia and security
forces and apply lawful punishment to those who disregard order and the
laws of the country. He went on to say that he considered that the
concepts of "solicitude for man" and "extenuating circumstances" were
poorly understood and were abused by overlenient courts. In his view the
courts had not shown sufficient firmness in cases involving trivial
infractions, such as rowdiness or minor infractions of the norms of
social relationships, or in cases dealing with persons who wish to live
without working (see ch. 8).

Nonetheless, the court organization, as it was redesigned in 1968, is
required to operate within a framework that is compatible with the penal
codes and is thoroughly described and established in the law. Of greater
significance, there has been an effort to make sure that the system is
run by adequately qualified personnel. People's assessors, who need have
no legal education, may outnumber the judges on the lower courts.
Decisions of these courts may, however, be appealed and, if higher court
panels are not made up exclusively of professional judges, the judges
always outnumber the people's assessors. Judges must be lawyers and are
preferably doctors of law.

The court system under the Ministry of Justice consists of the Supreme
Court, _judet_ courts, and lower