The Public Information and Press Relations Bureau within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice is authorized to bring to public knowledge the following:

Following the ongoing investigations in a case regarding criminal offences publicly known as „referendum crimes”, prosecutors within the Criminal Investigation Section from the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice have been and still are pursuing criminal investigations related to members of several electoral bureaus organised in Constanta County.

Hence, on the 20th of November 2012, prosecutors have ordered the beginning of the criminal proceedings for the following: 

· POPESCU VERONICA;

· COJOCARU LIBU MANUELA RALUCA;

· PETRE MARIA;

· POPA ELENA;

· PUŞCAŞU MARIANA

members of the electoral bureau of the voting section no 360 from Ovidiu for the crime of having placed in the voting urns extra voting bulletins than the ones placed by the voting population or for having forged, by any means, the documents from the electoral bureaus, crimes mentioned by art. 55 of the Law 3/2000.

In the resolution for beginning of the criminal proceedings, the prosecutors have described the circumstances of the crimes as follows:

During the national Referendum organised on the 29th of July 2012, the persons in question have introduced in the voting urns an extra number of bulletins corresponding to persons who have not attended the referendum and whose signature was falsified, hence presenting in a false manner the reality of the documents from the electoral bureau.

We do mention that starting the criminal proceedings is just a phase of the criminal investigation mentioned in the Criminal Procedure Code, having as a goal the creation of the proper legal framework for administrating the evidence, which in no case can break the presumption of innocence.