site.btaCabinet Approves Reforms to Make Prosecutor General Investigation Mechanism Workable

The government has adopted a package of legislative amendments aimed at establishing an effective and functional mechanism for investigating the prosecutor general, the Council of Ministers reported on Thursday. The package introduces mandatory judicial review of decisions to terminate or suspend criminal proceedings in a number of corruption cases involving individuals holding high public office.

The amendments are driven by the urgent need to take action to implement the commitments set out in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

The purpose of the proposed changes is to introduce effective institutional oversight over the actions of the ad hoc prosecutor tasked with investigating the Prosecutor General or his or her deputies, oversight that has, in practice, been lacking to date.

The bill does not create a new mechanism, rather, it makes the existing one operational by addressing legislative gaps and introducing genuine safeguards for oversight.

The explanatory memorandum explicitly points to an “intolerable gap in the Criminal Procedure Code,” including references to a non-existent provision, which in practice has blocked the functioning of the mechanism. Amendments to the Judiciary Act provide that oversight will be exercised by a judge from the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Cassation (serving as supervising prosecutor), selected at random from a list approved by the Chamber’s General Assembly. The list is to include judges of the highest rank with substantial experience in criminal justice.

The supervising prosecutor’s powers will include reviewing the investigating prosecutor’s acts and decisions, issuing binding instructions, assessing the lawfulness and merits of procedural steps, and potentially reopening proceedings if new circumstances arise.

The supervising prosecutor will be appointed upon the opening of the proceedings, ensuring that the investigating prosecutor’s actions are subject to oversight at all times.

The draft foresees mandatory judicial review for the decision to discontinue criminal proceedings concerning offences allegedly committed by the prosecutor general.

Mandatory judicial review is also being introduced for the termination or suspension of criminal proceedings in a number of corruption cases involving people in senior public positions.

In addition, mandatory judicial review is introduced for decisions to terminate or suspend criminal proceedings in a range of corruption cases involving senior public officials.

The new regulations require that the court be notified, the review will cover both legality and merits. The requirement for an interested party to file a complaint in order to trigger judicial review is eliminated.

The explanatory memorandum emphasizes that under the current legal framework, in the absence of an interested party to initiate judicial review of prosecutorial warrants, the process is effectively hindered from progressing further.