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Romania Penal Code
Romania introduced its new Penal Code in 1978. It was
somewhat
less draconian than the two previous penal codes
promulgated during
the early period of communist rule, in 1948 and 1968. The
new code
had a major impact on crime and punishment. It reduced the
overall
number of indictable offenses, introduced lighter
sentences, and
established a more flexible approach toward the treatment
of
offenders, juvenile offenders in particular. It mandated
rehabilitation instead of prison sentences in many cases.
The greater emphasis on socialist legality, or the rule
of law
over adherence to the political dictates of the PCR
evident in the
1978 penal code, did little to change the PCR's attitude
toward the
phenomenon of political crime. Although officials denied
it,
estimates indicated that as many as thirty prisoners
remained
incarcerated for political "crimes" after the government's
January
1988 amnesty. Human rights groups reported that this
estimate
represented only a fraction of the total number of cases,
as many
more prisoners with political motivation had been
convicted of
common crimes or of attempting to leave the country
illegally.
Political prisoners were customarily tried and convicted
in
military courts. Articles 166 and 167 of the Penal Code
were used
to charge Romanian dissidents as criminals for calling on
the
regime to respect the civil and human rights outlined in
the
Constitution or for granting interviews to foreign
reporters to
discuss the regime's repressive nature
(see Dissidence
, this ch.).
They could receive sentences of from five to fifteen years
for
disseminating "propaganda against the socialist order,"
for "any
action aimed at changing the socialist order or from which
a danger
to the security of the state may result," or for
"slandering the
state."
Under the 1978 Penal Code, a system of release on bail
for
those accused of minor crimes was established. Previously
bail was
granted only to foreigners, who were required to post it
in hard
currency. First offenders were punished by disciplinary or
administrative actions and court-ordered fines. Courts
could order
corrective labor under the supervision of a specific
industrial or
agricultural enterprise and mandate an automatic 15 to 20
percent
reduction in the salary of an offender. For other
misdemeanors, the
courts could order an offender to be placed on probation
under
police (militia) supervision for up to five years. Minors
between
fourteen and twenty-one years of age were tried by a
collective
comprising the leaders of the school or enterprise where
they
studied or worked, UTC representatives, and a judge or
other
representative of the local procuratura. As a rule,
convicted
juveniles served a term of supervised labor in
correctional homes
called "special training institutes." Only minors with a
prior
record of offenses could be sentenced to a prison term,
and they
were supposed to be segregated from older inmates. The
1978 Penal
Code reduced the number of offenses punishable by death
from
twenty-eight under the 1968 penal code to just a few
serious crimes
including first-degree murder, air piracy, treason, and
espionage.
It imposed a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison
for all
offenses. Misdemeanors were expunged from the 1978 Penal
Code and
formed into a separate Code on Minor Violations of the
Law, leaving
only felony offenses in the Penal Code.
Beginning in the 1970s, the Council of State announced
an
amnesty program approximately every other year. Generally,
prisoners serving less than three years or with less than
three
years remaining on longer sentences were freed, and the
sentences
of prisoners serving more than three years were reduced.
The
government reportedly released 90 percent of those in
prison or
awaiting trial through an amnesty announced in January
1988.
Amnesties may have been intended to alleviate chronic
labor
shortages or to clear prisons crowded by strict law
enforcement.
Data as of July 1989
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