THE STATE OF LAW: BETWEEN THEORY AND REALITY

Not just a creation of the modern world, such phrases as the "rule of law" or the "state of law" are found in post-December Revolution (1989) law dictionaries and give us a new conceptual perspective on the institution of the state. These concepts have been transposed into the phrase the "rule of law", as evident in article 1 paragraph 3 of the Constitution of Romania, establishing that "Romania is a democratic and social state, governed by the rule of law". Among the 130 paradigms of the word "right" offered by The Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language, we may consider adding one more-the one that defines a state whose legal system is based on the four validated principles of the concept of the "rule of law". These are: the supremacy of the constitution; the guarantee of the security and constitutional rights of citizens; civil society as an equal partner of the state; and the separation of state powers. State power is shared between different institutional compartments (legislative, executive, and judiciary) with separate and independent powers and responsibilities. Legislative power, as well as democracy itself, is related to a country's recognition of its constitutional rights and principles, developing from a simple institutional basis and becoming a "state" uner the "rule of law". This article proposes a debate on the meaning that the legislature wished to give to the notion of the "rule of law", in terms of the principles of its underlying concept as expressed in the articles of the Romanian Constitution. As such, The Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language may be lacking a new paradigm of the word "right", seeing rather the presence of a pleonasm.