CHAPTER 12
PUBLIC ORDER AND INTERNAL SECURITY
By 1972 the internal security situation in Romania had changed a great deal from that of the post-World War II period and the first few years of the communist regime. In those days the regime had feared for its existence and for that of the system it was attempting to establish. It had feared interference from outside the country and active opposition from a large segment of the local population and had also doubted the reliability of a considerable number of those within its own ranks.
In the police state atmosphere of that time a good portion of the people had also, and frequently with good reason, feared the regime. People whose greatest crime might have been lack of enthusiasm feared that they might be suspected of deviant political beliefs. Because of the brief time then being spent on investigation of a crime and seeking out an individual's possible innocence, such persons could easily emerge from hasty trials as political prisoners.
By 1972 the security troops--successors to the secret police that had held the population in dread and terror twenty years before--still existed in considerable force. They had receded into the background, however, and only infrequently had any contact with the average citizen as he went about his daily routine.
The population was undoubtedly not altogether content in 1972 and often chafed at bureaucratic red tape, at lackluster performance on the part of minor officials, and at other irritations. The youth, in particular, was showing reluctance to be molded into the uncompromising pattern of socialist society, and some of its resistance took on characteristics considered intolerable by the regime. On the other hand, there was little, if any, sign of organized opposition to the system or the leadership. The dominant attitude throughout the country was cooperative to the degree that, if the system was seen to be in need of change, it was preferable to attempt reform from within the system itself and along accepted guidelines.
Reflecting the easing of internal tensions, the formal framework of the judicial system--the penal code, the code of criminal procedure, and the courts--was extensively changed in 1968. Although the new code emphasized protection of the state and society more than individual rights, the code it replaced had been one of the most severe and inflexible in Europe. The new codes clearly specified that there was no crime unless it was so defined in law and that there was to be no punishment unless it had been authorized by law.
Procedures for criminal prosecution were set down in readily understandable language that, if adhered to, guaranteed equitable treatment during investigation, trial, and sentencing to a degree hitherto unknown in the court system. There were also provisions for appeal of lower and intermediate court sentences.
Petty cases were disposed of by judicial commissions that did not have court status. Such commissions were set up in villages, institutions, collectives, or enterprises comprising as few as 200 people. Although authorized to administer only small fines or penalties, they were established in a fashion designed to involve large numbers of people in the judicial process and to exert local pressures on those appearing before them.
INTERNAL SECURITY
During the mid-1950s the militia (civil police force) and security troops were busily engaged in apprehending alleged spies, traitors, saboteurs, and those who persisted in voicing beliefs considered dangerous to the regime and the socialist system. In the early 1970s directives for security agencies still identified the 1950 threats to the regime and exhorted the agencies to continue to combat the same old enemies of the people. The emphasis has been altered, however, and national authorities appeared generally satisfied with the improved internal security situation in 1972.
The regime had by then become seriously concerned much less over mass violence or organized subversion than over levels of unrest or passive resistance that are evidenced by widespread laxity, carelessness, indolence, or an obvious lack of popular support. The militia blamed a rash of railroad accidents in 1970 on laxity when investigation determined that the equipment had, in nearly all cases, operated properly and the people had received sufficient training to make the system work safely. It also blamed an excessive number of fires on carelessness and negligence. Classified political and economic data were found on several occasions during routine checks of unoccupied and unsecured automobiles. New laws were published in 1970 to deal with vagrancy, begging, prostitution, and persons not seeking employment or living what the authorities termed "useless lives."
Although they have been relaxed, controls over the population remain strict by Western standards. A 1971 decree on the establishment of private residence placed rigid limitations on movement to the cities, allowing only those who get employment and are allocated housing to move. For example, military personnel must have had previous residence in a city in order to establish residence there after retiring from the service.
All persons over fourteen years of age must carry identification cards. The cards are issued by the militia and are usually valid for ten-year periods to age forty-four, after which they have no expiration date. They are reissued, however, if the photograph no longer matches the appearance of the bearer or when a name change--such as that following marriage--affects the identity. In addition to the photograph and other data for identification, the card contains blood type and residence information. Identification cards of prisoners or persons held in preventive detention are withheld from them.
Ministry of Internal Affairs
The minister of internal affairs is one of the three members of the Council of Ministers who head governmental agencies charged with defense of the country and security of the regime and the social system. His ministry is responsible for the various police and related organizations that, although controlled from national headquarters, perform most of their functions at the local level in the defense of law, order, and property. It cooperates with the Ministry of the Armed Forces and with the State Security Council, a watchdog committee that oversees police activities, but neither of those agencies does a large share of its work with local government or party agencies (see ch. 8).
Two-thirds of the ministry's major directorates deal with the militia. They include the militia's general inspectorate; its political council; and directorates relating to firefighting, special guard units, the Bucharest militia, and Bucharest traffic control. Other directorates of the ministry deal with prisons and labor settlements, reeducation of minors, and state archives.
Militia
The militia is organized at the national level under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is probably also responsible to the State Security Council. The chain of command between the ministry and local police units appears to work from inspectorate general offices in the ministry through the thirty-nine _judet_ (county) inspectorates and one for the city of Bucharest. Local police units and local inspectorates, in addition to being subordinate to their counterparts at the next higher level, are also responsible to the locally elected people's councils. This dual subordination probably works because of the overriding influence of the Romanian Communist Party at all levels.
Most of the police work is done, and by far the greatest part of the organization is situated, in the many local police offices. These are located any place in which there are sufficient numbers of people or enough valuable property to justify them--in towns, communes, enterprises, or cities, where there may be several. The ministry may also establish other individual police jurisdictions at railroad stations, ports, airfields, and large construction sites and in other special situations on a temporary or permanent basis.
The militia is charged with defense of the regime and the society, with maintenance of public order, and with enforcement of laws. To accomplish the more general tasks, it is directed to detect criminal activities and to apprehend criminals. The militia is also given responsibility for preventing crime and for guiding, assisting, or directing other organizations involved in protection of the regime, the citizens, and state or private property. An increasing portion of routine police work is required in the control of highway traffic. The militia may also be called upon to assist in emergencies or in disaster situations.
Militia regulations require the police to respect individual rights and the inviolability of homes and personal property in normal circumstances. Restrictions are removed, however, if circumstances warrant. Police may commandeer any vehicle or means of communication, private or otherwise, if the situation demands. During chase or during investigation of flagrant crimes, they may enter private homes without permission or search them without warrant.
Citizens are directed to assist the militia when called upon or to act as police--to apprehend and hold violators--if no police are at the scene when a crime is committed. Provisions authorizing the formation of auxiliary police groups are established in law. Such auxiliaries would ordinarily be organized by the militia but, whatever their sponsorship, they would be expected to cooperate with local police authorities.
According to the law defining the militia's organization, its personnel consist of military and civilian employees on the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Officers, military experts, and noncommissioned officers are recruited from the graduates of schools operated within the regular military establishment. Policemen may be drawn from those selected annually for compulsory military service. The armed forces' personnel regulations apply to militiamen acquired from the draft process or from military schools. Graduates of civilian schools are employed in the police force to meet its requirements for specialists who are not trained in the armed forces. These individuals and others who have had no association with the armed forces retain civilian status and are subject to the provisions of the labor code and other regulations applicable to civilian employees.
The militia's personnel strength of 500,000 in 1972 means that about one person in every forty of the country's population is in, or employed by, the force. The reason for this high ratio is that the militia organization has branches at all government levels, from the national ministry down to the village. Also, its working groups include nearly all of the country's guard, regulatory, investigative, and paramilitary organizations, as well as those performing police and firefighting functions.
Security Troops
Security forces organized at the national level to protect the regime from subversive activities, whether locally or externally generated, were created in the late 1940s and are still maintained. The force in 1972 numbered roughly 20,000 men. It is organized along military lines, and most, if not all, of its men have military rank. It receives its administrative and logistic support from the Ministry of Internal Affairs but is supervised by the State Security Council.
According to pronouncements made during anniversary ceremonies held in August of 1968, during their twenty years of service the security troops had been a consistently reliable force. Their mission was described as identifying and apprehending foreign espionage agents and combating local spies, saboteurs, agitators, and terrorists. It was declared that the forces operated under the leadership and direct guidance of the party and governmental leadership and that local security forces were controlled by the party authorities in districts and cities.
Pronouncements by the leadership about their local subordination notwithstanding, the security troops, which are the direct descendants of the old secret police, are still controlled at the national level. Because of their declining mission in counter-espionage and counter-subversion, they undoubtedly cooperate wherever possible in usual militia functions, but they appear to have only nominal responsibilities to local government agencies.
The diminishing role of the security troops is evident in several areas. Their personnel strength in 1971 was a fraction of that of the militia. The country's efforts against external threat have been increasingly relegated to the regular armed forces. Also, although the chairman of the State Security Council--which was newly established in 1968--is a member of the Council of Ministers, in 1970 he was the only man on the security council who was a ranking party member, and he was no more than an alternate member of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. His vice chairmen were military officers, and only one of them was prominent enough in the party to have been a member of the Central Committee. It is evident that the State Security Council in Romania does not have the status of the high-level groups that in some countries have the responsibility for coordinating party and governmental activities relating to national security and for providing basic guidance to all of the various military, paramilitary, and police agencies.
PUBLIC ORDER
As is the case in the other communist countries that pattern their systems after that of the Soviet Union, Romania's leadership relies on the party and several mass organizations to foster a climate in which the people will actively support and cooperate with the regime. These organizations involve as large a segment of the population as possible in a broad spectrum of programs and functions. The efforts they elicit from their members may consist of activities within the organizations themselves or in local governments, judicial systems, and security groups. Mass popular involvement provides an influence that is generally subtle but that may become direct pressure.
Mass Organizations
The party attempts to attract the most competent and elite element of the people, to ensure that its members adhere to basic socialist ideology, and to maintain the power to direct and control all other groups involved in major social and governmental activities. The mass organizations support the party and carry its programs to special interest groups. They keep the party informed of the concerns of their members and may also, within certain limitations, have an influence upon the party's actions (see ch. 9).
There are about a dozen mass organizations. The Socialist Unity Front is not typical of the group, as in theory it encompasses all of the others as well as the party--although it supports and serves the party. It functions as a coordinating agency in such things as running the national elections.
The largest typical groups are the General Union of Trade Unions and the youth groups. There are three of the latter: the Union of Communist Youth (Uniunea Tineretului Comunist--UTC), the Pioneers Organization, and the Union of Student Associations. The UTC is a general group whose members are between fifteen and twenty-six years of age, although members in leadership positions may retain their affiliation beyond the upper age limit. The pioneers are the younger children, seven through fourteen years old; their program is designed so that they move naturally into the UTC when they become fifteen. The student groups are organized in universities or in schools beyond the secondary level. They have experienced difficulties in attracting members and in persuading those they have attracted to accept all of the principles set down for them (see ch. 9).
The other organizations are a miscellaneous aggregation, including a women's organization, the Red Cross, a sports and physical education group, one that involves the various ethnic nationalities, another that is a Jewish federation only, one that is designed to foster ties of friendship with the Soviet Union, and one designed for the defense of peace. Although they are highly dissimilar and vary widely in importance, all are designed to attract groups with special fields of interest and to guide such groups into activities that promote harmony and order.
The labor and youth groups, in addition to being the largest, are also those most actively charged with supporting the regime. Labor union members are active in auxiliaries of the militia and in the military reserves. The UTC membership spans most of the age group that is drafted into the regular armed services and the security forces. Within the services it forms units throughout the organizational structures that either direct or actively assist in political indoctrination programs and manage sports and recreational activities. Where a party cell exists, the UTC is guided by it; where the military unit is too small to have a party cell, the UTC functions in its place.
Youth Programs
Although the economy has improved and the internal security situation has stabilized, youth problems have increased, and much effort is being expended on their solution. Officials point out that the percentage of young people that have become criminals or whose antisocial conduct gets most of the publicity is very small. They complain, however, that the number of those who will not associate with the UTC and who display other negative behavior is far too great. Negative behavior on the part of young people reportedly involves their manner of speech and dress, which "offends common decency," their creation of public disturbances, their apathy toward work, and the fact that many of them have become cynical and infatuated with "wrong beliefs."
Authorities understand the youthful tendency to be nonconformist and accept the fact that a certain amount of the behavior they deplore is an attempt to affirm new and differing youth attitudes. Attitudes and conduct considered to have exceeded permissible bounds, however, are dealt with firmly. Leaders blame the inadequacies of some educational facilities; the ignorance, injustice, or excessive indulgence on the part of some parents and educators; and the overlenient courts.
Solutions that have been proposed since the late 1960s have run the gamut from advice to parents to the creation of powerful governmental agencies. Parents are admonished to take a firm attitude toward their children. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the UTC was made a member of the Council of Ministers, as minister for youth problems. University student associations have been given much new attention, as have the other youth organizations and their programs. The militia, armed forces, and security troops have been required to undertake programs to cooperate with youth organizations.
During 1969 the minister for youth problems was provided a research center by the Council of Ministers. Its purpose was to investigate the problems experienced by schools, universities, youth mass organizations, the militia, and the courts. As case studies are documented, the center is directed to evaluate the problems and the solutions found for them locally at the time they occurred and to disseminate the information, with additional comments and recommendations, as widely as possible.
In early 1971 a considerably invigorated program was unveiled for the UTC. Wherever possible, all programs were to become more mature and more stimulating. Military exercises would involve field trips and more realistic maneuvers. Aerial sports would include parachuting, gliding, and powered flight. Hobbies, such as model ship building, amateur radio, and the study of topography, were to be given more adequate supervision. Better equipment and facilities would be supplied for touring, motorcycling, mountaineering, skiing, and hiking. More youths were to be scheduled for summer camps. No information concerning the effectiveness of the new programs had been made available by early 1972.
Many university students held their party-sponsored associations in low regard during the middle and late 1960s, and eventually the then-existing student unions were dissolved or consolidated into the new Union of Student Associations. The incentives and pressures that were applied, in addition to revamping the union's programs, had succeeded by 1970 in re-animating the association to the point that it was active in all of the country's universities and institutes of higher learning. It was authorized to make recommendations applicable to extracurricular sports and tourist programs, political education, and the entire academic area of the educational establishment.
Programs for the young pioneer groups have probably not been the object of the same degree of reform effort that has been applied to the UTC and the student associations. A party spokesman stated in late 1971, however, that the 1.6 million pioneers were not too young to develop a socialist consciousness and to be given a communist education. He stated that their major programs should feature direct involvement in work of educational and civic value.
To give young people a sense of accomplishment, as well as to keep them occupied in meaningful and productive work, large numbers of them are organized into youth construction groups. In typical situations temporary housing or camps are built near the project, and all necessary facilities are provided at the site. During the spring of 1970, for example, five such groups were scattered throughout the country, operating concurrently. A majority of the projects have involved land reclamation, irrigation, or drainage. Many of them are major undertakings, and thousands of young people take part in the program.
CRIME AND THE PENAL SYSTEM
During a 1971 discussion on the judiciary's philosophy with regard to the general subjects of law and freedom, the chairman of the Supreme Court stated that the penal code and criminal procedures adopted in 1968 assign to the law the role of regulator of social behavior. The law has become, he said, not simply an instrument stipulating the rights and obligations of the citizen; its important social role provides a firm foundation for society's behavior. Other spokesmen have amplified this theme. They emphasize that, once an individual understands the law and its objectives, he appreciates the fact that individual freedom is related to the freedom of others and that a free individual is bound to respect accepted ideological concepts and accepted moral and judicial standards.
Public prosecutors have a broad range of responsibility in the judicial and penal systems. Their duties are not confined to handling the prosecution of indicted individuals who have been brought to trial. As the appointed protectors of the civil liberties of the people, their duties extend from crime prevention to rehabilitation of criminals serving prison sentences. They are responsible for seeing that crimes are detected and investigated and that penal action is taken against the criminal. They also see to it that the criminal is held in preventive detention, if necessary, before trial. After sentencing, the prosecutors have access to any place in which the criminal might be detained and pass on the legalities of the detention and the conditions within the penal institution. If a sentence either does not involve imprisonment (but is, for example, in the form of a fine, restriction, or extra work) or is suspended, the prosecutors ensure that the terms of the sentence are carried out.
Public prosecutors are monitored by the Office of the Prosecutor General at the national level. The prosecutor general (attorney general) assures that the work of local public prosecutors is consistent throughout the country, both in the choice of cases to pursue and in the diligence with which the prosecution is undertaken (see ch. 8).
Crime
Statistics released to the public do not include crime rates. Reliable data that would include petty crime would, in any event, be difficult to obtain because many minor infractions of law and all but the more serious of personal disputes are not termed crimes and are tried before the hundreds of local judicial commissions.
A rough assessment of the overall crime situation can, however, be made from the concern expressed in the many speeches and articles published by government and party spokesmen. It is apparent that certain types of crime are considered to be adequately under control and occur infrequently enough to be statistically tolerable. There are, for example, few trials in the political category, such as those where dissidents are accused of attempting to undermine the authority of the regime or to subvert the population from the approved ideology. In an exceptional case (apparently at least his second serious offense) an engineer found guilty of passing economic information to a foreigner received a twenty-five-year sentence in March 1971 for espionage. Similar trials were a frequent occurrence during the early 1950s, but much of the publicity they have received since the mid-1960s has occurred because they have become so infrequent as to be noteworthy.
Furthermore, to emphasize the more moderate and strictly legal procedures adhered to by police forces and the judiciary, some of the 1950 political trials are being reexamined. Most of those sentenced to imprisonment from such trials have been amnestied, the largest group in 1964. A few of those who were executed are still being posthumously rehabilitated.
On the other hand, there is a greater percentage of crimes in the categories that are sometimes attributed to an improvement in the standard of living but that reflect dissatisfaction with the rate of the improvement. These include economic crimes--theft and embezzlement--misuse or abuse of property, and antisocial crimes and crimes of violence, which are committed most frequently by younger people. Party officials also deplore the prevalence of laxity in the use of state property and in the safeguarding of official information and documents.
Measures taken to combat crime have had varying degrees of success. Speculation is illegal, but efforts to prevent private sales of new and used cars at excessive profit have been ineffective. Cars two to five years old sell for more than their original cost. Crimes such as vagrancy, begging, and prostitution were, as of late 1970, defying the best efforts of the militia and the courts. This type of crime had been prevalent during the early post-World War II period but declined after about 1950. During the late 1960s it again began to increase. The militia has also encountered a problem in the amount of popular cooperation it is able to count upon. Individuals who have identified persons as having committed criminal acts have been subjected to reprisals. The militia has, however, been able to show good results against vandalism, pilfering, and petty theft. By mid-1971 crimes of that category had been reduced to pre-1969 levels.
The 1968 Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) invasion of Czechoslovakia generated a certain amount of disillusion that probably contributed to the increase, during the late 1960s, in attempts to emigrate illegally. An émigré reported that about 40 percent of the prison populations at Arad and Timisoara, or some 500 inmates, had failed in attempts to cross the border into Hungary. Most of them were reportedly twenty to thirty years old and were serving sentences of from one to five years.
Modern crime-fighting facilities have been introduced more slowly than has been the case in the more prosperous European countries. During 1970 the Ministry of Justice established the Central Crime Laboratory and two branch, or interdistrict, laboratories. All of them serve the militia, the security and armed forces, the courts, and the public prosecutors. They are equipped to assist in the investigation of all aspects of crimes except those where medical and legal services are required. They include facilities for handwriting, fingerprint, and ballistic analyses and analysis of documents (for counterfeiting or alteration) and for performing a number of other physical and chemical tests.
Traffic Control
Traffic control demands a sizable portion of police energies, although by 1972 highway use remained low in comparison to the rest of the continent. There had been few motor vehicles before World War II, and numbers for personal use or for motor transport increased slowly during the immediate postwar years. Since about 1955, however, both categories have become available at an accelerated rate.
In 1963 traffic was up over 200 percent (and in 1965 approximately 300 percent) from 1955 levels. Total numbers of vehicles increased at about 10 percent a year during the late 1960s, and the number of those that were privately licensed doubled during the two-year period 1968 and 1969. Encouraged by the government during approximately the same period, tourist traffic tripled.
Irresponsible driving, lack of traffic controls, and lack of concern for their danger on the part of pedestrians, bicyclists, and wagon drivers contributed to an acceleration in the number of accidents and casualties that paralleled the increase in traffic. In 1969 there were 2,070 deaths resulting from about 5,300 reported accidents. Only about 40 percent of the victims were occupants of the vehicles involved and, of them, a considerably larger number of passengers than drivers were killed. Nearly 50 percent of the total fatalities were pedestrians; the remainder were on bicycles or wagons.
Considering accident statistics higher than warranted by the rising volume of traffic, the regime had enacted a series of stricter control measures, the bulk of them in 1968. Officials analyzing the problem attributed most of the poor record to disregard for driving regulations and inadequate traffic controls. Excessive speed had accounted for about 40 percent of the accidents. Driving under the influence of alcohol, failure to pay attention, and failure to yield the right of way accounted, in that order, for most of the others. Drivers were blamed for about 65 percent of accidents, pedestrians for 31 percent, and malfunction of vehicles for 4 percent. Accidents in which alcohol was a factor tended to be the most serious. One in every 2.3 alcohol-related accidents resulted in a fatality.
After 1968 the more stringent regulations and measures to enforce them began to yield results. By 1970, although both the numbers of local automobiles and tourist traffic had continued to increase steadily, accidents had decreased by 8 percent; and deaths and injuries from them were down by 7 and 8 percent, respectively. Officials gave credit to an educational program in secondary schools, the beginnings of a vehicle inspection program, and positive actions taken to reduce driving after drinking, as well as to the new regulations and enforcement efforts. During 1970 the militia suspended about 20,000 operators' licenses, canceling a number of them.
Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure
The penal code in effect before 1968 was one of the most severe in Europe. The penal code and the code of criminal procedure that have replaced it attempt to ensure that criminals are not able to evade the penalties provided for in the law but, at the same time, there is a stated guarantee against the arrest, trial, or conviction of innocent persons. Protective measures for accused persons are to be respected by all law enforcement and judicial agencies.
It is emphasized that an individual is found guilty according to the relevant evidence in his case. Courts are instructed to base sentences on the crime, rather than on an individual's reputation or extenuating circumstances. A Romanian assumes legal responsibility and is subject to the codes at age fourteen; he is considered an adult before the courts at age sixteen.
If the possible sentence for an alleged crime is five years or more, the accused is guaranteed counsel during any part of the investigation that involves his presence after he has been taken into custody, in the preparation of his defense, and throughout his trial. Minors and enlisted military personnel are authorized counsel without regard to the possible sentence. The defense counsel has access to all findings that are uncovered by the prosecutor or other investigators during the investigation of the case. Except in special cases specified in the law, trials are public. Decisions as to guilt or innocence and the sentence handed down are concurred in by a majority vote of the judges and people's assessors on the court.
The maximum prison sentence for a first offense is twenty years; for a repeated serious offense, it may be twenty-five years. The death sentence is also authorized, but it may be commuted to life imprisonment. The most severe sentences are still authorized for crimes in the political category--those endangering the state, the regime, or the society. Serious crimes against property and crimes of violence against a person are also considered grave but, unless they are exceptional, are not punishable by death. A person receiving the death penalty has five days in which to request a pardon. If the sentence is carried out, execution is by a firing squad.
The new codes attempt to reduce court time spent on minor offenses. Those that constitute no significant danger to society and should be prevented from recurring by social pressures have been removed from the list of crimes and have been relegated to the judicial commissions. In other cases, where an act is still classified as a crime, an offender may elect to plead guilty without a trial. If he does, he is charged one-half the minimum fine for the offense, and the case is closed.
Pretrial preventive detention is authorized to protect the individual, to assure that he will not elude trial, or to prevent his committing further criminal acts. Detention is ordinarily limited to five days for investigation of a crime or to thirty days if the person has been arrested and is awaiting trial. Extensions up to ninety days are authorized if requested by the prosecutor in the case. Longer extensions may be granted by the court.
According to the Romanian press, which has commented on the way that the new codes have served the people, examples of poor performance are usually attributable to the inertia of the bureaucracy. When citizens' rights are withheld, red tape or over-worked personnel are most frequently to blame. Occasionally, however, officials are unresponsive to individuals' requests and provide services grudgingly without an adequate justification for delay.
Courts
The Constitution charges the judiciary with the defense of socialist order and the rights of citizens in the spirit of respect for the law. It also gives the courts responsibility for correcting and educating citizens who appear before them, to prevent further violations of the law. Party leader Nicolae Ceausescu, in a 1970 pronouncement, indicated that the party leadership may feel that the law should stress to an even greater extent the defense of the state and society rather than the rights of the individual. According to his statement, the first obligation of the courts is to collaborate with the militia and security forces and apply lawful punishment to those who disregard order and the laws of the country. He went on to say that he considered that the concepts of "solicitude for man" and "extenuating circumstances" were poorly understood and were abused by overlenient courts. In his view the courts had not shown sufficient firmness in cases involving trivial infractions, such as rowdiness or minor infractions of the norms of social relationships, or in cases dealing with persons who wish to live without working (see ch. 8).
Nonetheless, the court organization, as it was redesigned in 1968, is required to operate within a framework that is compatible with the penal codes and is thoroughly described and established in the law. Of greater significance, there has been an effort to make sure that the system is run by adequately qualified personnel. People's assessors, who need have no legal education, may outnumber the judges on the lower courts. Decisions of these courts may, however, be appealed and, if higher court panels are not made up exclusively of professional judges, the judges always outnumber the people's assessors. Judges must be lawyers and are preferably doctors of law.
The court system under the Ministry of Justice consists of the Supreme Court, _judet_ courts, and lower courts. The lower courts, which might be considered lower municipal courts, are usually referred to only as "the courts." Bucharest has a court that is an equivalent of a _judet_ court, and it has several of the lower courts (see ch. 8).
The lower courts are courts of first instance in all cases they hear. This could include cases that had previously been heard by judicial commissions. Such cases would not be considered to have been legally tried and would require reinvestigation and altogether new prosecutions, making sure that rights of the accused and all legal procedures were properly observed.
Appeals from the lower courts are heard by _judet_ courts, which are also courts of first instance in more serious cases. Final appeal is to the Supreme Court. There is no appeal from its decisions, but it is not totally free and independent. It is within one of the government's ministries and is also responsive to the party leadership.
Judicial commissions function at a level below the formal court system. Each such commission is composed of several members (usually five), handles a wide variety of cases, and attempts to hear as many of them as possible in public. Because the judicial commissions are not a part of the court system, their cases are not included among criminal statistics. Unless appealed, however, their sentences are binding. Official documents describe the commissions as public organs for exerting influence and legal control, organized so as to bring about broad participation of the masses, providing them with a socialist education in legality and promoting a correct attitude toward work and good social behavior. The educational benefits are intended both for those serving on the commissions and for those who are judged by them.
The commissions handle small damage or personal disagreement suits between individuals--small first offense cases involving public property, petty thefts, misuse of property when no willful abuse is involved, negligence cases, and traffic violations. Judicial commissions set up in enterprises or collectives handle minor labor disputes and work-grievance cases. In all situations the commissions attempt to exert the influence of public opinion and, in personal disputes, to achieve reconciliations.
Penal Institutions
Depending upon the seriousness of a crime, its category, and the age and occupation of the individual, until the mid-1960s a convicted person was confined in a correction camp, a labor colony, a prison or, if subject to military law, a military disciplinary unit. Prisons included penitentiaries, prison factories, town jails, and detention facilities of the security troops.
A majority of labor colony inmates were political prisoners and, if there were a few of them that had not completed their sentences or were not released in amnesties by the mid-1960s, they were probably transferred to penitentiaries. Increased use of judicial commissions for petty crimes and an accompanying change minimizing confinement in lesser cases have further reduced prison populations and eliminated the need for separate categories of correction institutions. As a result, the 1970 law on the execution of court sentences treats all places of confinement as prisons or penitentiaries (under the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) or as military disciplinary units (under the Ministry of the Armed Forces).
Place of detention vary, nonetheless. Maximum security prisons are provided for those convicted of crimes against the state's security, serious economic crimes, homicides or other violent crimes, and recidivists. All convicted persons are obliged to perform useful work, and an effort must be made to educate and rehabilitate the inmates. Consequently, all but town jails and those facilities designed to hold persons for short stays have labor and educational facilities.
A convict is paid according to the country's standard wage scales. He receives 10 percent of his wages; the remainder goes to the penitentiary administration as state income. The maximum working day is twelve hours. If work norms are regularly exceeded, sentences are shortened accordingly.
Inmates are segregated for various reasons. Women are separated from men; minors, from adults; and recidivists and those convicted of serious crimes, from those serving short terms. Drug addicts and alcoholics are isolated whenever possible. Persons held in preventive arrest, not yet convicted of a crime, are separated when possible from convicted persons. Unless their conduct is considered intolerably uncooperative, they are not denied the ordinary prison privileges.
Usual convict privileges include some visits, packages, and correspondence. Privileges allowed vary with the severity of the original sentence and may be increased, reduced, or done away with altogether, depending upon the inmate's attitude and behavior. Consistently good conduct may also earn parole. An inmate who performs an exceptional service may be pardoned altogether; many were freed for their work in combating the great floods during the spring of 1970.
Other disciplinary measures include reprimand, simple isolation, severe isolation, or transfer to an institution with a more severe regimen. All convict mail is censored, and correspondence whose content is considered unsuitable is withheld. Conversation during visits is limited to Romanian or to a language familiar to someone available to monitor what is said.
Amnesties are granted periodically. Some, such as those that freed political prisoners in 1964 and the one in late 1970, reduce prison populations considerably. They may, as in 1964, free a particular category of prisoner or, as in the December 30, 1970, amnesty, serve to reduce sentences of all types but on a basis of the amount of the term unserved. At that time full pardon was granted all who had less than a year of their sentences to serve, even if an individual had been sentenced but had not yet begun to serve the term. Full pardon was also granted to pregnant women, women with children under five years of age who had up to three years of their sentences remaining, and to all women over the age of sixty. The amnesty even applied to cases in court. Trials were to continue, but the amnesty would take effect if it were applicable to the sentence. If, however, an amnestied person committed another crime within three years, he would be confined for the unserved portion of his commuted sentence in addition to the new one.