t once every three months
in the presence of the minister of justice for the purpose of issuing
guidance directives.

With the territorial-administrative reorganization of February 1968, the
jurisdictions of the former regional and district courts were
restructured to correspond to the new administrative units. Accordingly,
there are thirty-nine _judet_ courts and the municipal court of
Bucharest, which has _judet_ court status. Each court on this level is
presided over by a panel of two judges and three lay jurors, known as
people's assessors, and decisions are made by majority vote. People's
assessors were first introduced in December 1947 and given additional
legal status in 1952 by the Grand National Assembly's Law on the
Organization of Justice. The law required these lay assessors to be
Romanian citizens and at least twenty-three years of age. Most of the
people's assessors are appointed by the PCR or by one of the district
bodies of the mass organizations (see ch. 9).

Below the _judet_ courts, and subordinate to them, are the lower courts.
In the city of Bucharest these consist of eight sectional courts, which
function under the supervision of the municipal court. For the remainder
of the country the number of these lower courts and the extent of their
territorial jurisdiction are established by the Ministry of Justice.
Courts on this level are presided over by a panel composed of one judge
and two people's assessors; decisions are based on a majority vote.

Military courts are established on a territorial basis, subdivisions
being determined by the Council of Ministers. The lower military
tribunals have original jurisdiction over contraventions of the law
committed by members of the armed forces; the territorial military
tribunals exercise appellate jurisdiction for decisions of the lower
units. In certain situations specified by law, cases involving civilians
may be assigned to military courts. At each level, the military courts,
when acting in the first instance, consist of two judges and three
people's assessors. In appeals cases on the territorial level, the
courts consist of three judges only. As in the civil courts, decisions
are reached by majority vote.

In 1968 the Grand National Assembly enacted a law establishing a system
of judicial commissions to function as courts of special jurisdiction in
the state economic enterprises and in localities. These commissions were
designed as "an expression of s