expanded the rights and freedoms of Romanian citizens (Toronchuk, 2009, p. 16).
According to V. Vynogradov: "The Constitution of 1866 was not designed for the growth of
Romanian society, but, as events have shown, it was designed for growth. The development
of society flowed into a ready-made legal norm" (Vinogradov, 2016, p. 16). We emphasize
once again that the Romanian constitutionalism of the second half of the 19th century
developed in rather difficult conditions. For example, against the background of the weak
economic power of the bourgeoisie and the middle class, which, moreover, did not have
strong parliamentary representation, there was no need to talk about the radical adoption
of democratic norms in the first Basic Law of the country. But even under such conditions,
the Constitution of 1866 proved to be viable from the point of view of state law, since
significant changes were made to it only in 1923, that is, in 57 years.
The Constitution of Romania, at the highest level, enshrined, in order to guarantee,
first of all, personal human rights and freedoms (civil, natural), directly related to the very
essence of a person as an individual. Another novelty for the society of that time was the
consolidation of political rights and freedoms of citizens related to relations between an
individual and the state, an individual and public authorities, an individual and political
parties and other state and political institutions of the state and society, and the definition
of their list. The third group of citizens' rights at the constitutional level includes economic,
socio-cultural and family rights.
The Basic Law of 1866 established new (legal) boundaries for future development,
created the regulatory and legal basis for the process of renewal of the principality and
contributed to the gradual integration of Romania into the system of European states of the
second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the Romanians themselves, the
Constitution became an additional incentive for national unification into one state.
References
Andya, S., Bolovan, I., Opryanu, K. Kh., Pompiliu, T., Pop, I-A., Popa, K. (2005). History of
Romania (V. Veratik, V.N. Mishchenko, N.N. Chukanova (ed.). Ves mir.
Banciu, A. (2018). Constitution and identity in Romania, Sphere of Politics, 3-4 (197-198), 22–
56.
The Romanian Constitution of 1866. Retrieved from
https://www.constitutia.ro/const1866.htm.