Emil Constantinescu was born on November 19, 1939, in Tighina, Ținutul Nistru, Kingdom of Romania, which today is named Bender and de facto part of Transnistria.

His mother, Maria Georgeta Colceag, was born in Ploiești on April 24, 1916, and, after graduating from high school, was a student at the Bucharest Conservatory in the harp class, but gave up her career in music to follow her husband, Ion Constantinescu.

In the period 1953–1956 Emil Constantinescu was a student of the "Nicolae Bălcescu" High School in Pitești (currently Colegiu IC Bratianu) and obtained his Matriculation Diploma on July 19, 1956, in the same year he enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University Bucharest.

He obtained a Diploma in Legal Sciences in 1960 and after completing his military internship in Piatra Neamț, he began his work as a trainee judge at the Pitesti Regional Court, economic section.

He gave lectures at the Universities of Tübingen, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia – New York, Georgetown – Washington, Indiana – Bloomington, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Prague, Turku, Cairo, Lublin.

After the fall of the communist dictatorship, he engaged along with other university colleagues and renowned Romanian intellectuals in the effort to re-democratize Romania, in the defense of fundamental human rights and freedoms as well as in the establishment of the civil society.

After the bloody violence committed by the miners who, at the call of the then president Ion Iliescu, invaded Bucharest in June 1990, he founded, together with his colleagues, professors, and students, the association Solidaritatea Universitară (i.e.

He entered the second round and obtained 38% of the votes in the confrontation with then incumbent president Ion Iliescu who was supported by the Democratic National Salvation Front (FDSN).

After another two Mineriads which took place in 1999 (one in January and the other in February), culminating with the arrest of Miron Cozma, the remainder of his term suffered a political crisis between the majority parties that, at the time, formed the governing coalition (i.e. CDR, PD, PSDR, and UDMR/RMDSZ).

Despite this, his presidency has been eventually credited with putting an end to the Mineriads, a reform of the banking system as well as with the attraction of the first major foreign investments in Romania after 1989.

[3] Constantinescu had occasionally criticized the policies of the 2004–2014 president, Traian Băsescu, accusing him of authoritarian tendencies,[4] and supported Crin Antonescu in the first round of the 2009 presidential elections.