Attorney General Augustin Lazar on Tuesday said that Romania's prosecutors in 2016 solved 569,673 cases and sent to court 63,722 individual defendants, up 8.2 percent from 2015, while the number of final acquittals dwindled significantly.
"In 2016, 63,722 individual defendants were sent to court, up 8.2 percent from 2015. There was a continuing positive trend in this area. The increase from reference year 2009 was 27 percent, which indicates an increase in the judiciary's efficacy in disciplining society," Lazar told a meeting where the 2016 activity report of the Public Prosecution Service was unveiled.
Lazar said there was a 10-percent drop in people sent to court under pre-trial detention in 2016, explaining that the decrease is the result of balanced evaluations by prosecutors, given that pre-trial detention is an exceptional punishment and only taken when other preventive measures fail to achieve the goals.
Evident to that, he said, is a proportional increase in the number of court files where court supervision was ordered, and such development is an example of the Public Prosecution Service adjusting its practice for the constant jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
In 2016, 569,673 cases were solved, making up 32.1 percent of the total caseload.
"The number of pending cases as of the end of the statistical period was 1,117,702 in 2016, compared with 1,095,394 in 2015. This very important indicator permanently scrutinised by Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) experts increased by an insignificant 2 percent. That is a special achievement, given that previously the indictor would increase continually and significantly. An analysis of the quality of criminal prosecution in 2016 shows the number of defendants finally acquitted in 2016 dropped significantly from 2015, and even more from 2013, with just 809 final acquittals, 118 of which as a result of offences being decriminalised," said Lazar.
Moreover, out of the finally acquitted, just 30 had been under pre-trial detention - down 25 percent from 2015 - with their weight in the total of defendants brought to court in 2016 standing at 1.3 percent. Property returning ordered by courts made up just 0.46 percent of the cases before courts.
Lazar went on to say that as far as case resolution celerity was concerned, about half of the total cases were solved in less than six months after being registered.
In his opinion, this indicator has to be improved by specialising prosecutors and police officers.
"Exigence on the part of prosecutors determined a nearly 5-percent drop from the previous year in the weight of rulings in favour of dropping prosecution in the total number of solved cases. We can notice a continual rise in the average of individual defendants sent to court in 100,000 in 2007-2016 with the exception of a sudden drop in 2014," said Lazar.
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