THE NEED FOR REGULATION AS AGGRAVATING VARIANTS OF INCRIMINATION OF SOME HUMAN TRAFFICKING ACTIVITIES THAT AFFECT THE COLLECTIVE SAFETY AND ROMANIAʼS SECURITY
THE NEED FOR REGULATION AS AGGRAVATING VARIANTS OF INCRIMINATION OF SOME HUMAN TRAFFICKING ACTIVITIES THAT AFFECT THE COLLECTIVE SAFETY AND ROMANIAʼS SECURITY

Summary/Abstract: The legal protection of victims of human trafficking requires that, in fulfilling cosubstantial positive obligations, states discourage violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, by incriminating as effectively as possible the conduct with criminal significance, which international legal instruments repress.In the case of Romania and other countries exposed to international human trafficking routes, combating this phenomenon should lead to a change in the state's criminal policy, by more severely sanctioning acts committed in violation of Romania's borders, especially those that threaten collective security.In recent years, with the expansion of armed conflicts from Middle East and surrounding areas, people in search of a better world have fallen victim to various forms of trafficking, this phenomenon continuing its expansion amid other conflicts, which have sustained the influx of refugees into Europe.The amendments to the Criminal Code by Laws no. 202/2024 and no. 269/2024 mainly concerned the special limits of the crimes of human trafficking and trafficking in minors, as well as the crime of pimping, the aggravating forms of which provided for in art. 213 paragraphs 2, 3 and 31 of the Criminal Code, were repealed.Beyond the fact that this last option of the legislator intervened quite quickly, given that paragraph 31 of art. 213 of the Criminal Code had been the subject of a relatively recent normative act, represented by Law no. 217/2020, some amending provisions have consolidated part of the standards for the protection of victims of crimes, while other normative deficiencies remain pending a verdict from the legislator.Future legislative amendments should criminalize as aggravating variants of crimes acts committed in an organized manner, violating Romania's land and maritime borders, which expose victims to serious dangers, by returning to some solutions from the old criminal law or enshrining new aggravating forms.These possible interventions would correspond to the new social realities, as Romania has also become a destination country for victims of human trafficking and should lead to the elimination of some elements of uncertainty in the criminal law, in order to consolidate the vision that Directive 2011/36/EU imprints on this matter.Consistent with our previous approaches, we understood that in this article we would bring into discussion a series of more important aspects, which could be of concern to the legislator, in the context of the challenges raised by the geopolitics of human migration and the threats to the security of Romania and Europe.

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