Yesterday I had my first class with the third-year students in Criminal Law: Special Part II. We are beginning the course with offenses against public authority and the state border—Title III of the Special Part of the Criminal Code, which opens with the offense of contempt. The class coincides with recent discussions about threats or acts of violence committed against a professional group exposed daily to difficult situations: medical personnel. I have seen posts on social media regarding the criminal nature of such acts, citing Article 652 of Law No. 95/2006. I have also seen, starting Monday evening, news regarding the proposed amendment to Article 257 of the Criminal Code—which I covered in class today—the article that regulates the offense of assault. I believe it is important to understand the current situation a bit so that we know what we want to propose. 𝐔𝐧 𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐣 The offense of outrage has existed since the first Penal Code of modern Romania—the Cuza Code.

In preparation for the conference on February 27, I read in the French press that some members of parliament visited several juvenile detention centers yesterday. I am not discussing their political affiliations here, but rather a few details about the visit, the situation in these centers, and the juvenile justice system in France: - In Nanterre, at the center for minors in pretrial detention, out of 18 rooms, only 14 are occupied. The minors are alone in their rooms; - 787 minors were in pretrial detention in France as of January 1, 2026, held in nearly 50 detention facilities; - elsewhere, at the same facility in Nanterre, overcrowding has reached 212%; a 12-square-meter cell can hold up to 5 detainees, some of whom sleep on mattresses placed directly on the floor; - Minors should not be held with adult inmates, but detention conditions do not allow for compliance with this requirement; - Over 70% of minors released from detention are re-arrested

“At what point did I give my consent? Never!” The words above belong to Gisèle Pelicot—the woman who was drugged by her husband and subjected to a long series of rapes over approximately 10 years—and were spoken during the trial of her 50 assailants, in response to a statement by one defendant who claimed he believed everything was consensual. The discussion about consent predates the revelation of the horrors of the Pelicot case (also known as the “Mazan rapes”) in France and other countries. In this context, however, the bill (link 1 in the comment below) submitted in January 2025, which sought to incorporate consent into the definition of rape in the Penal Code, was debated in an expedited procedure and ultimately passed in October 2025. The law was enacted in November. In the Explanatory Memorandum of