Romania’s ruling party announces major changes to Criminal Codes

Romania’s ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) plans to bring some major changes to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Civil Procedure Code, which would change the way criminal investigations are conducted and would make the prosecutors’ job more difficult while giving suspects more rights than they currently have. The projects to change the three codes were posted on the website of the Parliament Commissions tasked with the justice laws, which is led by PSD MP Florin Iordache. In January 2017, when Iordache was justice minister, the Government adopted an emergency ordinance to change the criminal codes. The ordinance, which would have changed overnight the way some corruption offences are treated in Romania, triggered the biggest street protests that Romania has seen in over two decades. The Government repealed the ordinance and Iordache resigned, but then took helm of the special committee in the Parliament in charge with changing the justice laws. The project to change Romania’s Criminal Procedure Code would limit public information about ongoing investigation and ban showing handcuffed suspects. It would also allow suspects to take part in any hearing in their case, at their request. Hearings should take maximum 6 out of 24 hours, according to News.ro. Digital data from a system unrelated to the crime, recovered based on a specific search warrant, would no longer be copied and used to in other criminal cases without a new, specific search warrant. These would include telephone call recordings, which can be heard by the suspects, on their request. After the case is closed, such recordings would have to be erased, unless they are subject to new search warrant issued in another investigation. The project was submitted yesterday to the Parliament. Should it pass in this form, the law would also apply retroactively, to decisions already issued. Another big change to the Criminal Procedure Code would also allow convicted criminals a lifeline even after the court rules a final sentence. Thus, if the sentence’s motivation is not signed by all the judges that were part of the ruling, the sentence can be challenged and the case would stand trial again, according to