The right of certain persons of not giving statements as witnesses in the Romanian Code of Criminal Procedure

• Author: Anca-Lelia Lorincz/Alexandru Florin Magureanu
• Position: Professor/Associate professor
• Pages: 198-206

The right of certain persons of not giving statements as witnesses

in the Romanian Code of Criminal Procedure

Professor Anca-Lelia LORINCZ1

Associate professor Alexandru Florin MĂGUREANU2

Abstract

The Code of Criminal Procedure provides some exceptions, from the general rule

according to which any persons can be heard as witness, as there are certain persons that

can not become witnesses in a criminal trial; these persons are as follow: persons that can

not be heard as witnesses and persons that are entitled to decline to testify. We consider

that the stipulations of the current Code of Criminal Procedure regarding the persons that

can not be forced to testify in some criminal cases is criticisa ble in terms of requirements of

legislative technique regarding the usage of a concise, clear style and a correct

terminology. Also, in order to correlate the stipulations of the Code of Criminal Procedure

with the ones of the current Criminal Code, we propose, de lege ferenda, a modification of

the criminal procedural stipulation s regarding the persons that can refuse to testify as

witness, by using the expression “family member of the suspect or of the defendant”.

Keywords: witness, criminal trial, family member, the current Code of Criminal

Procedure, the current Criminal Code.

JEL Classification: K14

1. The notion of witness

The Romanian Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP)3, which entered into

force on February 1 2014, has brought changes also regarding t he stipulations on

witness statements, as evidence in the criminal trial.

According to the CCP (art.114 para.1), witness is the person that has

knowledge of facts or circumstances that constitute evidence in a criminal trial.

The role that the witness statements have in the criminal trial and the

importance that the legislator recognizes, to this category of means of evidence, is

also emphasized by the stipulation according to which the quality of witness takes

precedence to that of expert, lawyer, mediator, representative of one of the parties

1 Anca-Lelia Lorincz - "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" Police Academy of Bucharest, Romania, lelia.lorincz

@gmail.com.

2 Alexandru Florin Măgureanu - "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" Police Acade my of Bucharest, Romania,

magureanu_alexandru_1982@yahoo.com.

3 Law no.135/2010 on the new Code of Criminal Pro cedure, pub lished in the Official Gazette

no.486/15 July 2010, with subsequent amendments.