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Description
Law enforcement is the key institution of the rule of law. According to Eurobarometer (March 2018) only 38 percent of the Slovak public trust the police. The project wants to trigger changes in the speed of the investigation. First, by creating pressure to collect speed and speed data obstacles in the investigation, and secondly, provide an analysis of the police procedure in investigating complaints. Based on Aliancia Fair Play findings propose measures to streamline investigations, speed up investigation procedures and improve quality and transparency police decision making.
The project will focus mainly on:
• Focusing the public''s attention on delays in the investigation, creating pressure for the police to generate data on the length of each phase of the investigation, the number and types of procedural steps performed and their subsequent publication as a basis for problem analysis and evaluation of solutions.
• Filing criminal reports mainly regarding economic crime, proposing evidence, monitoring their investigations.
• Proposals for system solutions based on experience in monitoring the process of investigating our complaints.
The main project activities will conduct systematic filing of criminal reports based on data analyzes of public sources on the management and economic activities of companies (financial statements, published contracts, public procurement). In addition to the justification, the criminal reports will also contain suggestions of evidence - suggestions on how the investigator should proceed, so the suggestions may also have a kind of educational dimension
A thematically different part of the project will be the follow-up to long-term monitoring of the application of the Act on Free Access to Information. The project will monitor these theme, and inform the public about the findings via campaigne.
The project will also continuously comment on laws, elaboration and communications of proposals for changes.
Summary of project results
The project responded to a situation where courts convicted defendants more than 10 years after committing a crime. We used 15 criminal proceedings that we initiated before and during the project. We found the delays in the first phase of the criminal proceedings.
In the monitored cases, the investigator decided on the prosecution in an average of 208 days, in 3 cases he decided only after more than 300 days, once he did not even make a decision even after two years.
As the investigator does not have full powers to obtain evidence at this stage, delays are a major problem.
It was not possible to objectify the extent of the mentioned delays. The police are said to be unable to compile statistics on the length of proceedings between the filing of a criminal complaint and the investigator''s decision to prosecute. The data are in the unconnected IS of individual subordinate police departments and are not connected to the IS of the prosecutor''s office either.
Criminal proceedings make it possible to postpone the investigation and make it impossible.
If the investigator decides not to prosecute, the whistleblower has only three working days to file a complaint with the prosecutor. He does not have a deadline for a decision.
Following the prosecutor''s decision on the complaint against the postponement of the criminal prosecution by the investigator, the law does not guarantee the possibility of an appeal or an independent second-instance review of the prosecutor''s decision.
We have developed 11 proposals to speed up investigation procedures. Ministry of Justice reacted to submit changes to speed up this phase of the investigation. The current police president has also agreed to meet on this topic, the date has not been set yet.
We also commented on the relevant 13 legislative proposals. We submitted a total of 120 comments. Approximately one third of them were subsequently accepted / partially accepted.
By monitoring the Info Act, we found that one-sixth of local governments had ignored the request. The analysis of the answers showed that the prosecutor''s office does not supervise the legality of local government resolutions consistently.
The statements of the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic and the willingness of the Slovak Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic to discuss solutions testify to a change in the perception of a serious problem that has been ignored so far.