The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses (FACIAS) has referred the matter to the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM), asking it to order the Judicial Inspection to carry out preliminary checks on possible disciplinary misconduct of DIICOT prosecutors from the Dâmbovița Territorial Office.
FACIAS's request comes in the context that in early December last year, the lawyer Ernest Andrei Moldoveanu, former Dean of the Dâmbovița Bar Association, died in a traffic accident, after having spent almost 20 hours at DIICOT hearings, the cause of this accident being probably excessive fatigue.
At the same time, FACIAS called for checks on the way prosecutors carried out their prosecution activities and whether they were carried out in violation of the rules of the Code of Ethics for Judges and Prosecutors.
According to these rules, judges and prosecutors have a duty to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens and are obliged to protect the dignity, physical and moral integrity of all persons participating in judicial proceedings.
The presence of a person before the investigating bodies, regardless of their procedural status, has a strong emotional impact, and the fact that they stay for hours in the halls of the Public Prosecutor's Office, sometimes without the possibility of obtaining food and water, considerably diminishes their ability to participate in the hearing.
In this case, the lawyer Ernest Andrei Moldoveanu appeared at the Prosecutor's Office on 3 December 2019, at 10.00 am. Due to the number of persons summoned in the case but also to the defective organization of the investigative activity, by not scheduling and not summoning the persons to be interviewed in a staggered manner by hours, the listening of the client assisted by the lawyer Moldoveanu started at around 04:00 on the day following the day on which he had been summoned and had presented himself at the Public Prosecutor's Office (on 4 December), ending at around 06:00, therefore after approx. 20 hours. Shortly after leaving the prosecutor's office, lawyer Ernest Andrei Moldoveanu was involved in a traffic accident which resulted in his death, when he drove his car into a truck, most likely due to the fatigue he had accumulated during the 20 hours he spent at the hearings.
FACIAS considers as abusive the way in which the prosecutors of the case have agreed to carry out the hearings, in flagrant violation of the procedural rights of the persons heard, violating fundamental constitutional rights, such as the right to life and the right to physical integrity.
Last but not least, FACIAS calls on the SCM to draw up detailed rules on the procedure to be followed in the handling of complex cases, which require the hearing of numerous persons, in order to ensure an effective investigation, respecting the rights of all participants in these proceedings.
ANNEX – Referral to the SCM