The witness’s right against self-incrimination. National standard

Autor: Ioan-Paul CHIȘ
Publicat în: Challenges of the Knowledge Society 2018
Disponibil online: aici.
Abstract: This study is meant to reveal the legal solution in the Romanian system regarding the witness’s right not to contribute to self-incrimination. Thus, as a translation of the principle nemo testis idoneus in re sua, the Romanian legislator stipulated the witness’s right against self-incrimination under the privilege of not using his statements, in consideration of his locus standi, against him, regardless of the fact that he later on was given the status of a defendant for the same offence or whether he is a defendant in a different case, which is connected to the one where he is a witness. Likewise, the privilege of not using
his statements against him, stipulated under these conditions in the criminal procedure law, seems to respond to the three difficult choices that the witness has, a premises for the necessity to formulate, on a jurisprudential bases, the witness’s right to remain silent and the right against self-incrimination.
Keywords: right to remain silent; self-incrimination; nemo testis idoneus in re sua; national legal solution.