Police seeks option to select crimes worthy of investigation

Photo: Jaanus Lensment

A fresh example out of real life: a divorced father was supposed, at ex-wife’s request, to drive daughter to a dancing class by car. The child failed to exit the building in time, searching for her clothes. The father entered to help the kid, found the clothes and got his daughter to the class on time. Arriving home, the mother filed complaint to court as, entering into the apartment, the father violated court-imposed ban of approach. Legally speaking, this was illegal entry into private property.

Should police take months to investigate a «crime» like this? Or, should they rather deal with real crimes? To this question, an answer is to be found by a criminal proceedings revision working group convening at justice ministry in April.

«Amending the law needs to be derived from need and be based on thorough analysis. But once we tackle this topic, we’d better do it without setting frames,» says attorney-general Lavly Perling. «In a word – this must be a law that the society needs.»

The problem is glaring: earlier, investigative bodies at least pretended that all crimes are investigated; now, they have begun to publicly admit that they just haven’t the time to deal with some of the cases.

And we are not talking about some everyday bicycle or metal thefts. The long list includes serious economic crimes with great damage caused. The reason is simple: police and prosecutor’s office only have capacity to investigate up to ten percent of economic crimes.

Files collecting dust

Ten years ago, an investigative department was created at Central Criminal Police supposed to tackle serious economic crimes. It features 42 investigators, who have nearly 300 criminal cases still waiting for their time.

«This just doesn’t work,» said criminal police head Priit Pärkna.

How come the theoretically best investigative department has, in a short time, become so overwhelmed? Because the best investigators thus collected brought along, from prefectures, the cases they had been dealing with. They could not leave these behind, as otherwise no-one would have picked up the unfinished business.

Thus, the investigators are drowning in work. Of the 602 cases that were filed over a year, 65 were sent to courts, 254 were terminated, and 339 are still being proceeded.

Therefore, investigators of economic crimes have begun to admit to victims that their cases are waiting on the shelves. Till they expire, probably.

«Obviously, the current system is not working. We have started to review the leftovers and sending some back to criminal bureaus at prefectures,» says Mr Pärkna. Simply put: the files will be no longer gathering dust in Central Criminal Police, rather in the prefectures.

Mr Pärkna, also, hopes the coming revision will alleviate the investigators. As admitted recently in Postimees by Central Criminal Police chief Indrek Tibar: from now on, entrepreneurs might rather have recourse to civil courts with professional violations. That would be better in terms of swift solution, he alluded.

Thus, aiming at the thing state, in the future police cannot be expected to thoroughly investigate every crime. Rather, the burden should be eased on account of the less severe cases.

As admitted by Police and Border Guard Board senior criminal official Kristi Mäe: the situation is critical. Therefore, the soon-to-begin discussion regarding revision is heartily welcome.

To move towards the Nordic legal practice with lighter burden of proof, the police have prepared numerous proposals.

For instance, with the less severe so-called blind cases – like a bicycle stolen – the police could just register the event and no more. To file a crime, a phone call by victim to police might suffice. As more specific suspicions emerge, the case might undergo more detailed investigation. 

The simpler questionings of witnesses and victims might be conducted in written form, using digital signatures and e-mail. That would save the time of investigators and witnesses alike.

To spare the investigators’ time, the tradition to terminate cases due to failure to identify the guilty by regulation. In 2013 alone, such lengthy writings filled with legalese amounted to 14,520 copies. This is about a half of all criminal cases concluded last year.

«Giving these up, we would save a thousand investigator work days a year,» says Ms Mäe.

The police would save investigators from excessive writing. For instance: currently, the content of a video-evidence must also be written in the file. Instead of that, why not just watch the video in court and asses it as evidence?

«To stenograph and make minutes of a 45 minutes long video, one employee spends two working days,» says Ms Mäe.

Loads of double work

Attorney-general Ms Perling admits that the Code of Criminal Procedure in force since 2004 does not carry the spirit of today’s e-state. «In Finland and Norway, things related to criminal cases are handled in a manner much more pragmatic.»

Ms Perling says that with economic crimes, police spends years gathering the evidence and then finally sends the case into court.

«And then we deliberate it for years in court until the court says the reasonable proceeding time has expired and therefore the case must be closed,» she says. «Was this worth the years of work?»

The cases drag on for years because in Estonia the burden of proof is heavy and things are often done twice. First, a witness will have to talk to the investigators, afterwards repeating the same before court. But it could only be done once – in court.

«Seems to me this is not the adversarial court procedure we wanted when we established the current system in 2004,» said the attorney-general.

Again, she refers to global practice where, in criminal files, the accusation is limited to a brief and plain description of a crime. In Estonia, however, long pages of legalese are to be produced to each section of accusation.

«This could all be left for deliberations in the courtroom,» suggests Ms Perling.

She added it makes no sense, in economic matters, to keep reading to one another invoices and the sums therein in the court when no-one has any doubt in the correctness thereof. «Rather, the debate ought to be about legal arguments,» she said.

Justice minister Andres Anvelt (SDE), in his office for the last few days, agrees: criminal procedure is obsolete and in need of an update. «By the way, this is a topic at the coalition talks currently,» said Mr Anvelt.