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Criminal Procedure Code

Criminal proceedings are formalized official activities that confirm the fact of committing a crime and sanction punitive treatment of the offender.

The concept and purpose of criminal proceedings

Criminal proceedings are activities of criminal prosecution bodies and judicial authorities with the participation of the parties to the proceedings and other persons, carried out in accordance with the provisions of this code. Criminal proceedings are recognized as having begun from the moment of an appeal to the competent authority or the initiation of a criminal case on its own initiative in connection with the preparation or commission of a crime.

The purpose of criminal proceedings is to protect the individual, society and the state from crime, as well as to protect the individual and society from unlawful actions by officials during the investigation of suspected or committed crimes, so that everyone who has committed a crime is punished to the extent of his guilt and no innocent person is prosecuted and convicted.

Criminal prosecution bodies and judicial authorities are obliged to act in the course of criminal proceedings in such a way that no innocent person is suspected, accused or convicted and no one is subjected arbitrarily or unnecessarily to measures of procedural coercion or becomes a victim of the violation of other fundamental rights.

Criminal Procedure Law

(1) Criminal proceedings are regulated by the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, international acts to which the Republic of Moldova is a party, and this Code.

(2) General principles and norms of international law and international acts to which the Republic of Moldova is a party are integral elements of criminal procedure law and serve as a direct source of human rights and freedoms in criminal proceedings.

(3) The Constitution of the Republic of Moldova enjoys supremacy over national criminal procedure legislation. No law regulating criminal proceedings has legal force if it contradicts the Constitution.

(4) Legal norms of a procedural nature contained in other national laws are applicable only if they are included in this Code.

(5) During criminal proceedings, laws and other normative acts that annul or restrict human rights and freedoms, violate judicial independence, the principle of adversarial proceedings, and also contradict generally recognized norms of international law, the provisions of international treaties to which the Republic of Moldova is a party, shall have no legal force.

The main legal basis of the Republic of Moldova