The Institution of the Prefect of the Brasov County

The prefect is appointed by the Government and represents the local Executive staff. He is not the coordinator of the mayors, the Local Councils, County Council and its president.

In Brasov County the Prefect is assisted by two deputy prefects. One of the deputy prefects provides operational leadership of the institution and the second one deals with public deconcentrated services, institutions representing the ministries in the territory. In the absence of the prefect, one of the deputy prefects takes over his duties.

The Prefect’s Responsibilities: The Prefect leads deconcentrated public

authorities. He/she may propose to the ministers and leaders of other institutions of central public administration to sanction the leaders of the deconcentrated subordinated to them.

The Prefect leads a special structure, which is not a legal person, called the Prefecture College, which includes the heads of public deconcentrated services. This allows the harmonization of the actions of the deconcentrated services in the county.

The Prefect is the guarantor of the compliance with the law and public policy at local level;

The Prefect ensures, at county level, the implementation and compliance with the Constitution, laws, ordinances and the decisions of the Government, other legal acts and public order;

The Prefect works for the implementation in the county of the objectives included in the Government Program and provides necessary measures to attain them;

The Prefect acts to ensure the climate of social peace, maintaining a permanent communication with all institutional and social levels, paying constant attention to preventing social tensions.

In this respect, he leads the Commission for Social Dialogue, which includes trade unions, employers and public institutions in the county, and the Commission for Civic Dialogue for the elderly, that meets monthly.

The Prefect establishes, together with local authorities, the priorities of territorial development.

The Prefect verifies the legality of the administrative acts issued or adopted by local authorities in the county. Under existing legislation, a prefect’s mission is to check the legality of decisions made by Local Councils, County Council and Mayors.

Activity of the legality control refers meeting two conditions of legality, namely:

- the substance conditions: administrative acts must be issued in compliance with the material power and territorial jurisdiction, the conditions and time limits expressed must respect the regulations governing the field of activity of the measure adopted by the local authority;

- the conditions of forms: administrative acts must be written, they must include all the information needed for identifying the issuing authority, the recipient of the document, the measure adopted, time and conditions under which runs the willing, the seal or stamp, and number of the registration of the administrative act, the issue date...

When the Prefect discovers elements of illegality, he will notify the authority issuing the act with the request that the document should be made in accordance with the law. If the issuer does not comply with the request, the act is challenged in court.

The Prefect’s role regarding the compliance of special laws concerning ownership:

- Law no. 10/2001 is a particular act regarding property claim for buildings abusively confiscated by the State or by other legal persons during the communist regime. Requests for monetary compensation are submitted to the Prefecture. Here, a special commission will decide whether the request is in accordance with the law.

- The laws of the land property establish the ownership of the land outside towns or villages (agriculture land, forests etc)

- Law no. 9/1998 is to award compensation to Romanian citizens for their goods, recorded in the Bulgarian property in the application of the Treaty between Romania and Bulgaria signed at Craiova on 7 September 1940.

- Law no. 290/2003 provides offering compensations to Romanian citizens for their property assets, seized, detained or remaining in Bassarabia, Northern Bucovina, Herta and held as a result of a state of war and of the Peace Treaty between Romania and Powers Allied and Associated, signed at Paris on 10 February 1947.

Apostil application

In order to support the Romanian citizens, starting on 16 March 2001, Romania acceded to the Hague Convention on abolishing the requirement over legalization of the foreign official documents, adopted at Hague on 5 October 1961.

Since 1 November 2004, The Brasov Prefecture has started the implementation of apostil procedure. This is a kind of stamp which is put on the administrative official documents drawn up in Romania to show their authenticity and will produce legal effects on the territory of a State signatory of the Hague Convention.

The Prefect Institution’s role in the process of European integration:

- to ensure the implementation of local action plan for European integration and external relations;

- to establish measures for implementing national policies decided by the Government and policies of European integration,

- to cooperate with similar institutions in the country and abroad, to promote common interests.

Managing emergencies

• The Prefect ensures, together with the other authorities, training and compliance with the measures of non-military defense and civil protection;

• The Prefect has the right, as chairman of the County Emergency Committee, to take measures to prevent and manage emergencies and use the money provided in the budget for that purpose;

• He/she can ask the mayor or county president, if necessary, to convene extraordinary meetings in cases requiring immediate measures to prevent, restrict or remove after-disaster situations, disaster, fire, epidemic or epizootic diseases, defense and public order.

The Institution of the Prefect of the Brasov County has two Prefectural Local Offices, in Fagaras and Rupea.

Also, it has two community services, one that issues passports and the other one that issues driving licenses and controls vehicle registration.