The High Court of Cassation and Justice is attacking the Constitutional Court of Romania’s law, which provides for additional penalties for convicts who flee the country to avoid prison. The Supreme Court considers the regulatory act unconstitutional as a whole and violates the right to a fair trial and the right to freedom.

Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR)Photo: AGERPRES
  • “The notice of unconstitutionality concerns the provisions of the specified normative act as a whole, the combined sections, taking into account that the provisions of Art. 1 paragraph (5) regarding the principle of legality, Art. 21 par. (3) The Constitution of Romania regarding the right to a fair trial in conjunction with the provisions of Art. 23 par. (2) regarding the right to personal freedom, as well as Art. 15 para. (1) and (2) of the Constitution regarding the non-retroactivity of the law,” said the ICCJ press release after the decision by 88 judges to refer the case to the Constitutional Court of Romania.

On November 29, the Chamber of Deputies adopted, as the governing body, a draft law that provides for additional punishments for convicts who did not appear to serve their sentences within 7 days.

The bill amends the Criminal Code in the sense that finally convicted persons who do not appear within 7 days to serve their sentence will have an additional sentence of 6 months to 3 years for a crime similar to the crime. Escape.

What additional punishments does the law provide for escaped convicts

Thus, the draft law stipulates that escaping from a legal state of detention or custody is punishable by imprisonment for a period of 6 months to 3 years. In the case of escape carried out with the use of violence or weapons, punishment is provided in the form of deprivation of liberty from 1 to 5 years with the prohibition of exercising certain rights.

Escape is considered:

  • a) unjustified non-appearance of the convicted person at the place of detention after the end of the period during which he was legally free;
  • b) arbitrary abandonment by the convict of a workplace located outside the place of detention;
  • c) violation by a person who is under house arrest of the obligation not to leave the premises or his failure to comply with the legally established route or travel conditions.

The punishment applied for the crime of escape is added to the punishment that remained unfulfilled on the day of the escape, also provided by the regulatory act.

The Chamber of Deputies was the decision-making body in this case, and it was to be announced by President Klaus Iohannis.

The government’s draft law on amendments to the Criminal Code was registered in extraordinary order in the parliament and approved by the Senate on October 23.