Incriminating the conflict of interests in Romania: recent legal developments

Autor: Mihai MAREȘ
Publicat în: Challenges of the Knowledge Society, 2018
Disponibil online: aici.
Abstract: The present paper aims at outlining the evolution of the Romanian criminal law provisions incriminating the conflict of interests, starting from its insertion, as of 2006, into the Criminal Code of 1968, until the up-to-date version of the offence as per the Criminal Code in force, renamed as use of the position for favouring persons, as amended by Law no. 193/2017. In this context, the approaches of the legal text in the well-established case-law of the judicial bodies as well as of the Constitutional Court and legal literature are highly relevant in order to explain the rationale behind the shaping of the legal content of the offence. The diachronic delineation shall be supplemented by elements of comparative law. Where appropriate, reference shall also be made to the administrative type of liability that may be incurred in a conflict of interest case and the relationship thereof with the proceedings in criminal matters or to distinctions between the analysed offence and other offences falling into the category of malfeasance in office or corruption offences. The conclusions of this examination emphasise the need for predictability and proper understanding of the criminological layer in tackling the conflict of interest phenomenon.
Keywords: malfeasance in office; conflict of interests; favouring; public servant; economic benefit.