Verification of Data Resulting from Technical Surveillance by the Court

• Author: Andrei Apostol
• Position: Lawyer, Iasi Bar, Romania
• Pages: 57-61

ISSN: 2067 – 9211 Legal and Administrative Sciences in the New Millennium

57

Verification of Data Resulting from

Technical Surveillance by the Court

Andrei Apostol1

Abstract: The present analysis aims to highlight the different methods of verification of the data obtained by

judicial bodies through technical surveillance methods provided by the Criminal Procedure Code. Although the

current legislative framework as interpreted by the Constitutional Court of Romania provides specific

guarantees in order to prevent using forged evidences in the criminal trial, we believe that the court, after the

indictment, needs to verify on its own the authenticity of such means of evidence. Therefore, the doctrine and

the recent jurisprudence of national courts stated in this context the need for an independent expertise that can

analyze the data obtained through technical surveillance in order to be used as evidence in a criminal trial. Also,

the present context of the Romania legislative reform and the context in which several cooperation protocol

between criminal investigation bodies and Romanian Intelligence Service were declassified, led to a stringent

need for such an expertise. We tend to believe that without an independent expert that can assess whether the

recordings are authentic or not, the court cannot in good faith decide to convict a person. Present paper is of

interest to any law practitioner as it tries to highlight in a concise manner both the framework for such an

expertise and the means to obtain it.

Keywords: technical surveillance; expertise; criminal trial

In the doctrine, (Gradinaru & Girbulet, 2012) several problems were raised regarding the legal

conformity of these legal provisions with the European Convention. The European court considered that

the national legal guaranties are to include the necessity of communicating all of the unaltered recordings

(Kruslin v. France, Huvig v. France, Valenzuela Contreras v. Spain). There needs to be a legal substance

regarding the unaltered and complete keepings of these recordings, so that the judge may examine them

(Prado Bugallo vs Spain, Dumitru Popescu vs Romania).

According to par. 2 of art. 143 copies of the minutes shall be sent to the court, together with the copy of

the support containing the technical surveillance activities, after hearing the case.

From this perspective, we believe that, in order to establish the truth and for a correct assessment of the

evidence, it is very important for the support to contain the conversations entirely, not only

fragmentarily, as is often the case in practice.

Moreover, the recording of communications on various media, as well as keeping them in conditions

imposed by the Code of Criminal Procedure was regulated to ensure the possibility to be heard or viewed

later, but, also, in order to be able to provide, if necessary, checking the correspondence between the

content of the recordings and of the minutes (reports) (Gradinaru, 2012).

1 Lawyer, Iasi Bar, Romania, Address: 2 Sf. Lazar Str., Iasi, Romania, Corresponding author: apostol.andrei93@yahoo.com.