Efectele deciziei nr. 4/2019 din 11 februarie 2019 a Înaltei Curți de Casație și Justiție sub aspectul imparţialităţii judecătorului fondului
Effects of decision no. 4/2019 from 11 february 2019 of the High Court of Justice and justice under the appeal of the implementation of the fund judge

Summary/Abstract: The new Romanian Criminal Procedure Code introduced a simplified procedure in all situations where a guilty plea is introduced by the accused. We can safely conclude that the indicated procedure altered not only the dynamics of the criminal trial but also the strategies used by defense lawyers and their consultation with their accused clients. As a consequence of this policy ( once all legal standards are met, the legal limits of punishment are proportionally reduced by one third on jail stipulated punishment or one fouth on criminal fine stipulated punishment) a vast majority of criminal cases are solved through this very procedure. However, several practical problems occurred, one of those problems concerning the impartiality of a judge that has to decide in a case with multiple defendants whilst only some of those follow the simplified procedure. On the matter in discussion, recently, Romanian High Court of Cassation and Justice issued a general mandatory decision ( no. 4/2019) forbidding the aquittal of a defendant who entered a quily plea on grounds of lack of evidence or lack of quilt. This study has, as main objective,the purpose to solve the problem of impartiality in those cases where either the evidence is identical but not all defendants enter a quilty plea or the decision on the simplified procedure influnces the opinion of the judge towards the defendants that did not enter a quilty plea considering the provisions of article 349 of Criminal Procedure Code that impose a specific obligation for studying and balancing all evidence in order to accept a guily plea. Mainly, the study offers a conclusion on the procedural position of the judge that drew conclusions on the content of evidence as consistent with the judicial truth ( as a mandatory step in order to accept a guilty plea) in connection with the situation of other defendants in the same trial that entered a not-guilty plea.

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