* Originally Published in revista 22 collection ' a Constitution for liberty III '

Art. 2 of the current Constitution of Romania provides that "national sovereignty belongs to the roman people, who exercised through its representative bodies established through periodic free elections and fair, as well as through referendum." The same article stipulates in addition that "no group and no person may not exercise sovereignty in their own name". Are combined here two distinct types of national sovereignty: the and the. The legal meaning of the concept of "nation" and "people" differs from the one of the same sociological concepts. Thus, the rent (always a risky operation) by "the people" means, in the legal sense, the totality of the citizens live and, in a limited sense, the totality of citizens with voting rights. The term "nation" means the totality of the citizens-totally including, besides the citizens live, and citizens dead and those yet unborn.

So, people cannot express their willpower than outright. In other words, popular sovereignty can not be represented, but only manifested directly, because living citizens are necessarily present may act through voluntarily. The nation, in turn, can manifest their will never directly, because citizens of the dead and the unborn have not yet how to manifest their will in the present. Therefore, will the nation cannot be than represented. Rezumand, popular sovereignty may delegate to the competent (primarily executive skills), but may not have representative bodies, because it cannot be prevented to manifest directly. National sovereignty, in contrast, may not have representative bodies, because than you cannot manifest than representation.

Option for one or the other type of sovereignty has significant consequences of the constitutional architecture. Thus, if the sovereignty belongs to the nation, legislative power becomes the main power of the State legislature, being the representative par excellence of the nation. If the sovereignty belongs to the people, the legislative power remains, in fact, nedelegata; This keeps people power, he can manifest his will directly at any time. Legislative chambers are just one delegate, competence, not an actual power. In the context of popular sovereignty, the Parliament did not "represent the will of the nation," but also "execute" the will of the people through the competence to legislate, which is delegated. Unlike the national popular Parliament Parliament is a species of executive power, and thus losing part of his duties, from power and the importance of the national Parliament.

The current Constitution of Romania is not the only one that provides for the coexistence of the two types of national sovereignty-and popular. The problem is the following: how the two kinds of sovereignty might occur obviously tension, the present Constitution does not provide for the way in which national sovereignty can co-exist with the popular so that tensions generated by this coexistence to be as low as possible or even cancelled.

The Romanian Parliament, for example, is characterized by Art. 61 para. 1 of the Constitution as "the Supreme representative body of the Romanian people", which turn into Parliament a ambiguous: on the one hand, he is the Supreme representative body, so it is defined as the national Parliament, on the other hand, is a body of people, so it is defined as a people's Parliament.

Beyond the ambiguity of the relationship between the two notions of sovereignty with which operates the popular sovereignty, the Constitution itself is ambiguous, as it appears in the constitutional provisions. Thus, the phrase "the roman people" can be interpreted without problems as meaning "people" in the legal sense of the term-and thus plays a lawyers.

On the other hand, Art. 1 (1). 3 of the Constitution speaks of "democratic traditions of the roman people". But people in the sense of the term, necessarily express this and, as such, cannot have traditions, and democratic. Traditions can have either the people in the sociological sense of the term, be the nation (which includes citizens of the past). It is clear that the text refer to the traditions of the Constitution introduces a limitation of freedom of expression of popular will, limiting what constitutes an stirbire of popular sovereignty.

Similarly, Art. 13 of the Constitution provides that "in Romania, the official language is English," and Art. 32 para. 1 provides that "education of all levels are conducted in English (with an exception for international languages, as well as for national minorities ' languages '). The Constitution establishes a community of language, beyond the rights and obligations of the community, which gives the concept of the "roman nation" additional connotations of "people" in the legal sense of the term.
There are, in addition, references to the identity of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious groups, both with regard to "the Romanians abroad" (article. 7), as well as on "national minorities" (article. 6). Thus, if when interpreting article 12. 2 in conjunction with the other items mentioned here, the concept of the "roman nation" seems to be loaded with meanings extrajuridice. To avoid this ambiguity, the phrase "the roman people" should perhaps replaced the notion of "simple people", as in the Constitution of the Italian or French, for example.