RESTRICTING THE STAGE OF ORAL PROCEEDINGS IN SOME CASES PENDING IN COURTS – IS SUCH A TRANSITORY SOLUTION NECESSARY IN THE PANDEMIC CONTEXT OR NOT?
RESTRICTING THE STAGE OF ORAL PROCEEDINGS IN SOME CASES PENDING IN COURTS – IS SUCH A TRANSITORY SOLUTION NECESSARY IN THE PANDEMIC CONTEXT OR NOT?

Summary/Abstract: In the new reality of these days, professional associations of magistrates have asked, through public calls, for urgent decisions intended to stop the pandemic spread in courts and prosecutors’ offices, and for legislative and administrative amendments, either by a reduction of the court examination activity to the settlement of urgent cases or by eliminating the stage of oral proceedings in some of the cases pending in courts and the immediate digitization of courts.This article seeks to bring into discussion once again the (alternative) proposal regarding the elimination of the stage of oral proceedings, by bringing back the relevant procedure provisions to the forefront, even under the temporary circumstances faced by the society, in order to see whether such restriction is in the letter and spirit of Art. 6 of the Convention, of ECHR’s jurisprudence and of the rigors imposed on the practice of the lawyer profession, in order to conclude whether such intervention in the normal, natural judicial activity is necessary and should be adopted. By changing the procedure rules in courts, can we eventually conclude that such requested restriction is able to guarantee an efficient and safe administration of justice?

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