Effects of the Constitutional Court decision regarding the conflict with the High Court on final sentences: Sentenced offenders may appeal for anulment within maximum 30 days

Among the various effects of Wednesday’s Constitutional Court’s ruling in the case of the conflict between the Parliament and the High Court, one counts the possibility for individuals who were convicted definitively to request a review of their sentences.

According to sources within the Constitutional Court, consulted by G4Media.ro, one of the effects of the decision will be that all persons who have been convicted by the five-judge panels in the High Court Criminal Section since 2014 will be able to make extraordinary appeals against final judgments, provided the extraordinary means have not been exhausted so far.

The lawyers consulted by G4Media.ro confirm this hypothesis, but they come with important clarifications.

„In criminal matters, the only extraordinary remedy against a final decision that can be based on the way in which the panel is formed is the annulment appeal, which means that the review is not even under discussion. According to art. 426 lit. d) of the Criminal Procedure Code, one of the cases is that „when the court of appeal was not constituted according to the law or there was a case of incompatibility”. And yet, according to art. 428 par. (1) of the same normative act, the appeal for annulment must be filed within 30 days from the date of communication of the final decision of the appeal court „, explained lawyer Mihai Badea, legal adviser of the USR group from the Chamber of Deputies.

But, he adds, „since 2014, no one has denied the legality of designating those panels, which leads us to the following conclusions: 1) Dragnea proves to be more” inventive „than the hundreds of lawyers who have filed with the Supreme Court over the last five years; and 2) for the vast majority of convicted persons, the legal period in which they could lodge an appeal for annulment has expired long ago. ”

„Even if the Constitutional Court declares that the law has been misinterpreted and wrongly applied with regard to the composition of the respective panels, no one will be reinstated within the legal term for appealing for annulment,” Badea explains. „And this is because the decisions of the Constitutional Court have power only for the future, according to art. 147 par. (4) of the Constitution. The only exception to this rule is when a criminal or contravention law is abrogated by law as a result of a Constitutional Court decision, in which case the effects arise under Art. 15 par. (2) of the Constitution, according to which the more favorable criminal or contravention law is applied retroactively „.

Among the politicians sentenced to imprisonment by the five-judge panels of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and who have not yet received the motivation for the decision are:

Elena Udrea – Former Development Minister and former PDL leader, sentenced in June 2018 to six years in prison with execution in the Gala Bute file ;

Alina Bica – the former head of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIOCT), who was finally convicted in June 2018, for four years in prison for favouring the offender (Ovidiu Tender). Practically, Bica was found guilty because she wanted to „bury” the file she had instrumented as a case prosecutor ;

Dan Şova – former PSD Minister of Transport, sentenced in June 2018 to 3 years in prison with execution in the Govora CET dossier for trading in influence

Constantin Niţă – former PSD Energy Minister sentenced in June 2018 to 4 years imprisonment for execution of the crime of trading in influence, being accused by the NDA of having received money from the businessman Tiberiu Urdăreanu.

Traducerea: Ruxandra Stoicescu