The State Audit Office completed a performance audit “Effectiveness of investigations and trials of the criminal offences in the economic and financial area” in December 2020, which assessed the factors that prolonged and hindered the investigation and trial of criminal proceedings. The Crime Prevention Council (the Council) approved the plan to address the problems identified in the audit today, which the State Audit Office considers a good basis for starting the improvements in this area.
To solve the problems identified in the audit, the State Audit Office provided 20 proposals to the Council to implement cooperation between the executive and the judiciary to set common goals and coordinate cooperation in strengthening the rule of law respecting the principles of separation of powers.
Under the leadership of the Ministry of Justice, with the involvement of the Office of Prosecutor General, the Ministry of the Interior, investigative bodies, and other competent institutions, there is a plan for the implementation of the audit proposals developed. Following the proposals provided in the audit by the State Audit Office, the approved plan includes a set of multi-directional measures.
The plan provides for measures to promote a common understanding of the application of the law, thus removing ambiguities about the essential facts to be proved and the set of evidence needed to prove guilt. The plan also includes measures for research and improvement of the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law and measures for the improvement of the regulation of the activities of the Prosecutor’s Office. The plan stipulates measures that would enable the officials in charge of criminal proceedings to receive qualified “technical” and advisory support at different stages of the criminal proceedings and measures to digitize the criminal proceedings and improve the management of the e-case software.
The plan also includes long-term issues aimed at reducing the overall workload of the system and concentrating the most qualified resources on the investigation of the most complicated criminal proceedings that have the most significant impact on the national interests. In the assessment of the State Audit Office, achieving improvements as soon as possible requires one to act for the gradual standardization of procedures in various types of criminal proceedings and the development and implementation of the most effective models of cooperation between investigators and prosecutors.
The plan also includes measures to identify problems in practice regularly and systematically in the future and to find the most appropriate solutions to them. For example, one intends to introduce an action mechanism for identifying the provisions of the Criminal Law, whose application in practice causes problems and based on the assessment of those problems, planning qualification improvement measures, development of guidelines and other materials to promote common understanding and improvement of the legal framework. They plan to continue regular assessment and reporting to the Council on the structure and characteristics of the backlog of criminal proceedings and conclusions on the necessary further action.