Probațiunea în materia infracțiunilor de corupție. Provocarea. Martorul “denunțător”
The following paper deals with certain issues concerning the rights to a fair trial, such as presumption of innocence, principle of „equality of arms”, assessment of the evidence, and expose the evolution of national and European caselaw and also the requirements derived from the European Convention on Human Rights.
The relevant caselaw reveals difficulties in assessing the evidence concerning the crimes of corruption, difficulties caused by the nature of the crimes, taking into account those as a rule entail two different authors of two separate crimes – active and passive bribery, persons that usually do not have an interest in disclosing the action, when the benefit is gained from an unlawful activity.
In some cases, the acts committed in a longer period of time have to be established, taking also into account the question of assessing the witnesses’ statements as valid evidence, those being regarded as indirect evidence and the proven actions from those statements amounted to proved acts but not main actions.
The assessment of evidence in criminal matters stemmed from the presumption of innocence principle has to comply with in dubio pro reo standard, entailing also a condition of certainty, i.e. of a solid ascertainment the guilt.
Moreover, the fair assessment of evidence, as part of the right to a fair trail, has to play a central role in a democratic society, so it cannot be disregarded in favor of expediency of the fight against corruption.
