The article titled “Procrustes’ Bed in Local Public Administration: In the Event of Failure at the Central Level, Can the Mayor and the Local Council Curtail Economic Freedom? The Case of Gambling,” written by Bogdan Bocăneală, a student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest.

This article analyzes, from the perspective of public economic law, the constitutional limits on the authority of local public administration bodies to restrict the conduct of an economic activity that is regulated and licensed at the national level, using the phenomenon of gambling as a case study. Based on the amendments introduced by Emergency Ordinance No. 7/2026, the paper examines the relationship between the economic freedom guaranteed by Article 45 of the Constitution and the obligations imposed on the state by Article 135: on the one hand, the obligation not to undermine the market economy and free competition under paragraph (1), and on the other hand, the obligation to intervene to protect the public interest under paragraph (2).

The analysis highlights the risks of regulatory delegation that transfers the resolution of a national public policy issue to the local level and assesses the compatibility of prohibitive measures with the constitutional requirements of legality, proportionality, and non-discrimination. It argues that general and permanent prohibitions may constitute an abuse of power, undermining the very substance of economic freedom. Finally, the applicable mechanisms of judicial review are analyzed, both in administrative litigation and through the exception of unconstitutionality.

Keywords: economic freedom, proportionality test, gambling, local government, regulatory state.