![handle is hein.journals/utrecht10 and id is 1 raw text is: The Struggle for the Rule of Law in Romania as an EU Member State:
The Role of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism
Radu Carp*
1. Introduction
The aim of this article is to demonstrate the interrelatedness between concepts such as: the rule of law, the
principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM).
In this article I will connect the CVM with the concept of the rule of law as envisaged by the European
Commission regarding the accession of Romania to the EU through its Progress Reports. The application
of the CVM to Romania is analyzed from both a rule of law and a proportionality and subsidiarity
perspective.
2. The rule of law
The first use of the phrase 'the rule of law' occurred in around 1500.' In 1607 the English Chief Justice
Sir Edward Coke formulated in the Case ofProhibitions a phrase that is similar to the meaning of the rule
of law.2 The term 'rule of law' is to be found in a petition addressed by the House of Commons to James
I of England in 1610.' John Locke referred to the rule of law in the Second Treatise of Government, as did
Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws. The rule of law is also mentioned in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
from 1755. The idea that no one is above the law is strongly connected with the period of constitutional
drafting in the United States, as Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense (1776) that 'in America, the law is
king (...) in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other'. 4 The Massachusetts
Constitution of 1780 declares as its purpose to establish'a government of laws and not of men.
* Professor of Public Law and Political Science, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest (Romania). Email:
1 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of the rule of law is attributed to John Blount: 'Lawes And constitucions be
ordeyned be cause the noisome Appetit of man maye be kepte under the Rwle of lawe by the wiche mankind ys dewly enformed to lyue
honestly.'
2 Quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary: 'the law was the golden met-wand and measure to try the causes of the subjects; and which
protected His Majesty in safety and peace: with which the King was greatly offended, and said, that then he should be under the law,
which was treason to affirm, as he said; to which I said (...) quod Rex non debed esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege [the King ought not
to be under any man but under God and the law]'.
3 'Amongst many other points of happiness and freedom which your majesty's subjects of this kingdom have enjoyed under your royal
progenitors, kings and queens of this realm, there is none which they have accounted more dear and precious than this, to be guided
and governed by the certain rule of the law which giveth both to the head and members that which of right belongeth to them, and not
by any uncertain or arbitrary form of government' H. Hallam, The Constitutional History of England, vol. 1, 1827, p. 441, <
> (accessed on 8 December 2013).
4 < > (accessed on 8 December 2013).
http://www.utrechtlawreview.org / Volume 10, Issue 1 (January) 2014 / URN:NBN:NL:Ul:10-1-115809 / M](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/utrecht10&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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