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The Chamber of Deputies adopted on Wednesday the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, removing several articles declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), while the Opposition's representatives criticized the project, arguing that it favored offenders and announced they would attack it again to the CCR.
There were 181 votes in favor, 83 against and one abstention.
The bill was adopted in the form established in the Select Parliamentary Committee on Justice, and all the amendments of the Opposition were rejected.
Thus, several articles criticized by the Opposition have remained in their original form on the grounds that they have not been attacked or declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.
One of these provisions refers to the prohibition of public communications and public statements in the course of criminal prosecution and trial of the cause, as well as the provision of other information, directly or indirectly, from public authorities concerning the deeds and persons under these procedures. Persons with the public authorities cannot refer to suspected or accused persons as if they were guilty unless there is a final conviction decision on those deeds.
The Chamber of Deputies has decided to remove from the original version of the draft amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure several texts declared unconstitutional, including Article 8 (2) which states: "Everyone has the right to a fair trial, by an impartial and independent judge. All cases are assigned to the judges randomly."
Also eliminated was the text of Article 10, which stipulated that "criminal investigation bodies and courts of Justice are obliged to provide the principal trial subjects and the attorney with time to prepare the defense, which may not be less than 3 days, except for taking or judging the preventive measures, when the term cannot be lower than 4 hours and the necessary facilities to prepare the defense, by making available and communicating the entire criminal investigation material in electronic form.The deadlines run from the moment when the criminal prosecution bodies or the court notify the parties of the measure taken."
The text stipulating that the criminal prosecution is set into motion and is exerted when there is evidence leading to substantiated clues that a person has committed an offense and there are no cases preventing its setting in motion or exercising has been dropped and the current form of the Criminal Procedure Code - the criminal action is put in motion if there is "evidence from which the reasonable assumption arises" has been restored.
The Chamber of Deputies is the decision-making forum.
