PROTECTION ORDER

PROTECTION ORDER

According to the provisions of Art. 23 of Law no. 217/2003, republished, for the prevention and combating of domestic violence, a protection order is a judgement issued by a court of law by which it orders, at the request of a person whose life, physical or mental integrity or freedom is endangered by an act of violence perpetrated by a family member, one or several of the following measures/obligations/interdictions, having an interim nature:

1. temporary eviction of the aggressor from the family home, irrespective of whether such is the holder of the ownership right thereon;
2. reintegration of the victim and, as the case may be, of the children, in the family home;
3. limitation of the aggressor’s right of use only over a part of the common dwelling when such may be partitioned in such a way that the aggressor does not come in contact with the victim;
4. accommodation/placement of the victim, with his/her consent and, as the case may be, of the children, in a support centre;
5. ordering the aggressor to keep a determined minimum distance from the victim, from the members of the victim’s family or from the residence, work place or educational unit of the protected person;
6. interdiction for the aggressor to go in certain localities or determined areas that the protected person attends or visits periodically;
7. prohibition of any contact, including by telephone, by correspondence or in any other manner with the victim;
8. ordering the aggressor to deliver to the police the weapons held;
9. entrusting minor children or establishing their residence.

By the same judgement, the court may also order that the aggressor bears the rent and/or maintenance costs for the temporary dwelling where the victim, the minor children or other members of the family live or shall live because of the impossibility to stay in the family home.

Besides any of the measures listed above, the court may also order that the aggressor undergoes psychological counselling, psychotherapy and may recommend voluntary or non-voluntary hospitalization. If the aggressor is consumer of psychoactive substances, the court may order, with their consent, their integration in a support program for drug consumers.

The protection order is enforceable. It is immediately communicated (the term is of maximum 5 hours) to the structures of the Romanian Police within whose territorial area the victim’s and the aggressor’s dwelling is located.

The protection order which orders any of the measures provided under Art. 23 of the framework-law shall be enforced immediately, by the police or, as the case may be, under its supervision.

Another legal obligation incumbent upon the police consists in the duty to supervise the manner in which the protection order is complied with and to notify the criminal prosecution body in case of avoidance of its enforcement.