PROSECUTORS HAVE PARTICIPATED IN AN INFORMATIVE SEMINAR ON CRIMINAL PROCEDURE SIMPLIFICATION

The ways of applying the institution of reconciliation, mediation, and declaration of guilt were discussed at the seminar organised by the Institute for Penal Reform in cooperation with the Centre for Scientific Research in Legal Order on May 19, 2006. An expert from Poland, Krzysztof Pawlowski, also took part in the seminar and presented the polish expertise on the application of mediation in criminal cases.

Representatives of the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Prosecutor’s Office of Chisinau Municipality, Sector Prosecutor’s Offices of Chisinau Municipality, the Supreme Court of Justice, as well as officers of the Ministry of Internal affairs took part in the seminar on criminal procedure simplification.

The main topics discussed at the seminar were the applicability of mediation in plausible reconciliation cases, the admissibility of mediation and its limits, as well as problems prosecutors face in the process of applying the institution of declaration of guilt.

In this way, by 05.05.2006, the Mediation Centre of the Institute for Penal Reform had mediated 45 cases, of which 31 ended by signing reconciliation agreements. The legal effects of the reconciliation agreements were either termination of criminal prosecution or attenuated circumstance.

The participants also discussed the bill on mediation and certain procedural aspects that create little impediments in mediation application on the entire territory of the Republic of Moldova. So, all the participants had the opinion that mediation has to be implemented step by step and accompanied by a communication campaign both for representatives of the legal community and the public opinion.

As far as the declaration of guilt is concerned, Mr. Didic, the Head of the Centre for Prosecutor’s Office Staff Training presented statistics on the application of the declaration of guilt and problems prosecutors face within this process. Thus, the most cases of declaration of guilt have been registered in Ungheni rayon and there seems to be a very big difference between the Northern and Southern part of the Republic of Moldova with a slight domination of the North.
The importance of this seminar consists in the fact that the practical application of the institution of reconciliation, mediation, and declaration of guilt will simplify the criminal procedure and the work of law enforcement agencies shall be concentrated on complex cases.