Decide Blanca Rieiro directed a formalization listening to on January 26, till the protection of the accused – recognized as the perpetrator of a murder – requested the Justice of the Peace to access the investigation folder of the prosecution, as a result of she did not agree that preventive detention will likely be issued in opposition to his shopper.
The request was primarily based on one in every of the modifications launched by the Pressing Consideration Regulation (LUC) promulgated in July final yr, and which enabled the judges to evaluation the tax file – in the event that they contemplate it pertinent – in three explicit conditions: in the hearings by which the software of jail as a precautionary measure is mentioned –as on this case–; in these by which the prosecutors talk the settlement reached with the investigated to cost them via an abbreviated course of; and through simplified processes, oral trials of a shorter time period than the strange ones.
Rieiro refused the request as a result of he thought of that the reasons given by the prosecution for requesting preventive detention have been passable. And he confused, nevertheless, that this was the first time in six months {that a} lawyer requested him to straight analyze the proof from the prosecution. « Prosecutors act in good religion, as they need to be, and develop the case verbally, » the Justice of the Peace advised El Observador.
The similar as Rieiro, 34th shift prison decide, identified different judges consulted. Judicial sources affirmed that up to now there isn’t any file of magistrates who have accessed the fiscal file, each in Montevideo and in the inside of the nation, greater than six months after the software of the laws.
This is a matter that has been the topic of dialog amongst the judges, and plenty of agree on the reasons why there will likely be few exceptions for which they are going to make use of the new energy.
Some perceive that the change in the LUC « does not generate any benefit » as a result of in actual fact the prosecutors base their allegations on the proof collected, and the legal professionals do not normally supply objections to the query of whether or not they had access to the tax investigation. Moreover, there are magistrates who imagine that doing so could « contaminate opinion », thereby producing one’s personal thought of how the occasions have been, which might lead to prejudice.
Others, like Rieiro, keep that since the prosecutors « learn » the data or experience collected at the listening to, it’s pointless to straight evaluation the proof.
And there are those that additionally declare that the file is not in paper format – folded or numbered – however on gadgets such as CDs or pendrives – which retailer audios or photos – and that this makes its evaluation cumbersome.
Rieiro, for his half, assured that in his case the pruritus to apply the school granted by LUC have to do with the rigidity that may be generated with the philosophical bases of the accusatory system in power since November 2017. The new Code of Prison Process ( CPP) ordered that the prosecutors and not the judges be answerable for main the prison investigations and finishing up the accusations.
The dialogue
When the LUC was mentioned in Parliament, the chapter devoted to modifications to the CPP generated a number of criticisms, each from the Prosecutor’s Workplace and the Affiliation of Magistrates of the Public Ministry and Prosecutor of Uruguay (AMFU).
In a report launched in April final yr by the Public Ministry, it was warned that granting this energy to judges was one thing « inadmissible, as it’s contradictory to the fundamental rules that decide the operation of an adversarial system. »
«It’s not in any case that the decide enters to management the aforementioned investigation folder. It’s not acceptable for him to enter to resolve whether or not there are pending investigation procedures or to know all the investigation procedures already carried out, which strategically none of the events have introduced to his data, « mentioned the doc in one other passage, and added, in tune with the present opinion of a number of magistrates: «This provision is incompatible with the most basic rules of an accusatory system, because it determines that the decide, who have to be a very neutral third get together, take cognizance of the investigation folder stored by one in every of the events, with respect to which it ought to keep complete equidistance « .
The AMFU, in the meantime, additionally warned in April of its place in opposition to the approval of the rule, amongst a number of others. Alongside the similar traces as the Courtroom Prosecutor’s Workplace, the prosecutors affirmed that with this measure there was a « fracture of the logic of the accusatory system as properly as the impartiality of the decide, who will naturally be contaminated. »
« The resolution maker is confused with the accuser, a facet already noticed at the worldwide stage as the one who decides can be a celebration, » they famous.
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