The pre-trial chamber judge

• Author: Edgar Lauren?iu Dumbrav?
• Position: PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, 'Nicolae Titulescu' University of Bucharest (email: edgar.dumbrava@gmail.com).
• Pages: 64-69

LESIJ NO. XXI, VOL. 2/2014

THE PRE-TRIAL CHAMBER JUDGE

Edgar Laurenţiu DUMBRAVĂ*

Abstract

The importance o f this work lies in important changes in the new Code of Criminal Procedur e,

amendments justified by the new realities of a democratic society in which criminal procedural rules

must be adapted according to the daily realities in the achievement of justice. The purpose of the paper

is given by the need of approaching at a theoretically level the institution of The Pre-Trial Chamber

Judge, given that so far there have not been developed any works on the subject. This paper addresses

both practitioners and litigants.

Keywords: judge, Pre-Trial Chamber, legality of sending trial ordered by the prosecutor, the

legality of evidence and to perform procedural acts of the criminal investigation, complaints against

non-traceable solutions or not to proceed in judgment

1. Introduction*

For reasons of simplification and

systematization of the trial, the Romanian

legislator has introduced in the new Code of

Criminal Procedure , ar t. 3, providing the

principle of separation of judicial functions.

Judicial bo dy e xercising the verifica tion of

the legality of the arraignment or

exculpation is the Pre-Trial Chamber Judge.

In the old criminal procedure law,

between 1953 and 1957, there was the

institution "preparatory meeting" governed

by art. 269-280 of the Criminal Procedure

Code adopted in 1936, amended by the

Decree no. 506 of 1953, published in

Official Gazette no. 53 of 14 December

1953. Preparatory meeting held at the end of

the examination phase, while in the first

instance to go to trial only t hose cases in

which evidence was necessary, sufficie nt

and legally produced. Article 272

established the judge who was to preside

over the preliminary hearing required to

study previously, detailed, the case file in the

* PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, “Nicolae Titulescu” University of Bucharest (email:

edgar.dumbrava@gmail.com).

light of the above. The panel of preparatory

meeting was stiffing broader than p re-

chamber judge having the power to order the

prosecution, to return the case for

prosecution or completion or restoration of

disposal and termination dismissal of

criminal proceedings, if it set one of the

causes that prevented the beginning or

continuation of criminal proceedings. With

the arraignment, the court was ruling also

over taking, maintaining, replacing or

revoking of preventive measures, over

taking the insurance measures, over any

requests made by the p arties, was fixing the

place of trial and summon the parties,

witnesses, experts and interpreters.

In the system of the Criminal

Procedure Code of 1968, in force until 31

January 2014, there wasn’t a separate

procedure for verifying the legality of the

arraignment or exculpation, procedural acts

necessary for such checks being made by the

first instance judge or judge resolve the