Filing a Criminal Complaint in Romania

I know that when you’ve been wronged, the last thing you want is paperwork. You want someone to take what happened seriously. A criminal complaint is the first step towards that: it tells the police or the prosecutor’s office about harm that a crime has caused you (art. 289(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The criminal investigation (urmărire penală) starts from it, and how quickly and how well the case moves depends a lot on how it’s written. I help you draft it, file it in the right place and keep track of the deadline, and then I represent you as an injured party (persoană vătămată) or civil party (parte civilă) at the police station, at the prosecutor’s office and at the Cluj-Napoca District Court (Judecătoria Cluj-Napoca).

This page is about how you start the case. I’ve written separately about what you do afterwards, as an injured party or civil party, once the case is open. If you’re a victim of domestic violence and you fear for your safety, you may also need a protection order alongside the complaint, and that’s obtained much faster.

Complaint, report or the authorities acting on their own

A case can reach the criminal investigation body (organ de cercetare penală) in several ways, set out in art. 288(1), and the difference is more than a matter of words.

For offences that require a prior complaint, there’s no case without your complaint (art. 288(2)). For the others, the police can act on their own, but a well-written complaint that points to the evidence saves time.

What a criminal complaint must contain

What goes in it is set out in art. 289(2): your surname, first name, personal numeric code (CNP), capacity and address, a description of the act, and the perpetrator and the evidence, if you know them. For a company: its name, registered office, tax identification code and representative. A written complaint is signed (art. 289(4)) and an electronic one needs an electronic signature (art. 289(5)); an oral complaint is recorded in a report, under art. 289(6). For a minor, the complaint is made by their legal representative, and if the perpetrator is the representative themselves, the authorities act of their own motion (art. 289(8)).

If the complaint doesn’t meet the formal requirements, or the description of the act is incomplete or unclear, it’s returned to you administratively, with a note of what’s missing (art. 294(2)). That means losing weeks. That’s why I think it’s worth getting it right from the start: what happened, by day and hour, the witnesses named, the documents attached, and a forensic medical certificate (certificat medico-legal) where there are injuries. You don’t have to give the legal classification of the act in the complaint, but I do, because it shows from the start whether a prior complaint is needed and how much time you have.

Where to file a criminal complaint

You file the complaint with the criminal investigation body, meaning the police, or with the prosecutor (procuror): art. 295(2) for a prior complaint, and art. 289 for the rest, which go to the criminal investigation body. For acts committed in Cluj-Napoca, that’s usually the police station for the area where it happened, or the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Cluj-Napoca District Court (Parchetul de pe lângă Judecătoria Cluj-Napoca). If you file it in the wrong place, you lose nothing. A complaint sent to the wrong criminal investigation body or to a court is forwarded administratively to the body with jurisdiction (art. 289(9)), and a prior complaint filed in time with a body that lacks jurisdiction remains valid (art. 296(4)). When the body receives the complaint, it checks its own jurisdiction (art. 294(1)) and, if the complaint is in order, orders the start of the criminal investigation into the act (art. 305(1)).

The prior complaint and the 3-month deadline

For certain offences, the law says criminal action can only be brought on the injured party’s prior complaint (art. 295(1)). They include assault or other violence (art. 193(3) of the Criminal Code, Codul penal), negligent bodily harm (art. 196(6)), threats (art. 206(2)), harassment (art. 208(3)), trespass (art. 224(3)), breach of trust (art. 238(2)), simple criminal damage (art. 253(6)) and theft between family members or by someone you’ve given lodging to (art. 231(1)).

The deadline is 3 months from the day you found out the act was committed (art. 296(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure). For a minor, it runs from the date their legal guardian found out (art. 296(2)). If the complaint is late, art. 297(1) says the criminal investigation body proposes closing the case (clasare). If the police have already started investigating and then find that a prior complaint is needed, they call you in and ask whether you want to file one (art. 297(2)); the same applies after an offence caught in the act (art. 298). Domestic violence follows a different rule: assault on a family member is prosecuted by the authorities of their own motion (art. 199(2) of the Criminal Code), so the case goes ahead even without your complaint.

Withdrawing the complaint and reconciliation

People make up, and the law allows for it. For offences that require a prior complaint, you can withdraw the complaint until a final judgment is given, and withdrawing it removes criminal liability (art. 158(1) and (2) of the Criminal Code). Two limits are worth knowing: withdrawal only takes effect if the prosecutor accepts it (art. 158(4)), and for assault and negligent bodily harm against a family member, withdrawal has no effect (art. 158(5)).

Reconciliation (împăcare) is something else. It applies to offences the authorities prosecute of their own motion, where the law expressly provides for it, for example theft and aggravated theft (art. 231(2)) or fraud (art. 244(3)). Reconciliation removes criminal liability and extinguishes the civil action, but only if it happens before the document that brought the case to court is read out (art. 159(2) and (3)). If the perpetrator offers you a deal, I’d suggest we talk it through before you sign anything: a carefully written reconciliation agreement deals properly with your loss, while a rushed one can leave you with no case and no money.

Compensation: joining the case as a civil party

The complaint starts the criminal side. To get compensation, you need one more step: joining the case as a civil party, in writing or orally, before the court starts examining the evidence (începerea cercetării judecătorești), stating the nature and extent of your claims, the reasons and the evidence (art. 20(1) and (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure). Before resolving the case, the criminal investigation body has to ask you whether you’re joining as a civil party and whether you want the civilly liable party (parte responsabilă civilmente) brought into the case (art. 20(1^1)). If you miss that point, your only option is the civil court (art. 20(4)). I’ve described how your rights then work in the case on the page about injured parties and civil parties, and for harm without a criminal case there’s tort liability.

What happens after you file the complaint?

Once the criminal investigation starts, the police gather evidence: they hear you and the witnesses, collect documents and order expert reports. You have the right to propose evidence, to consult the file and to find out, on request, what stage the criminal investigation has reached (art. 81(1)(b), (d) and (e)). The case can end in three ways: sending the case to trial by an indictment (rechizitoriu), closing the case or waiving the criminal investigation (renunțare la urmărirea penală). Under art. 318(1) and (12), the last is only possible for offences punishable by a fine or by up to 7 years’ imprisonment, when the prosecutor considers there’s no public interest, and it has to be confirmed by the preliminary chamber judge (judecător de cameră preliminară). You receive a copy of the closing order, as art. 316(1) requires. The deadlines below run from the date it’s communicated to you.

The case was closed: how do you challenge it?

There are two steps, each with a 20-day deadline.

1. Complaint to the higher-ranking prosecutor. You file a complaint against the decision to close the case with the chief prosecutor of the prosecutor’s office, within 20 days of the copy of the order being communicated to you (art. 339(1) and (4)). They have no more than 20 days from receiving it to decide it, and must send you their order (art. 338).
2. Complaint to the preliminary chamber judge. If the complaint is rejected, you have 20 days from the date the rejection is communicated to go to the preliminary chamber judge at the court that would try the act at first instance (art. 340(1)); for acts committed in Cluj-Napoca, that’s usually the Cluj-Napoca District Court. If the chief prosecutor doesn’t answer in time, you can go to the judge at any time after the 20 days have passed, but no later than 20 days after the answer is communicated (art. 340(2)). The complaint states the date of the order, the case number, the prosecutor’s office and the reasons (art. 340(3)). The judge decides it in chambers (camera de consiliu), by a reasoned ruling (art. 341(5)), and can either reject the complaint or grant it, setting aside the closing order and sending the case back to the prosecutor to start or complete the criminal investigation (art. 341(6)).

You can check the last day of each deadline with the court deadline calculator. I base the complaint on the evidence in the file, because the judge reviews the decision on the papers in the criminal investigation file and any new documents (art. 341(6), first sentence), not on how dissatisfied you are.

How I help

I listen to what happened and tell you in that same conversation whether the act is an offence, whether it needs a prior complaint and how much time you have. I write the complaint with its legal classification and the evidence attached, file it and ask for proof that it’s been registered. I come with you to the questioning as an injured party, draft your application to join as a civil party and regularly ask for updates on the case. If the case is closed, I file the complaint to the chief prosecutor and then to the preliminary chamber judge, in time. I can’t promise you the perpetrator will be sent to trial; what I can do is make sure your complaint is complete, on time and well supported by evidence.

The up-to-date text of the Code of Criminal Procedure is on legislatie.just.ro. If you want to file a criminal complaint or you’ve received a closing order, write to me or call me. Send me whatever you have to hand, even a photo of the messages or of the medical certificate, and I’ll tell you what happens next.