Indicted persons to be preventively arrested up to 6 months and authors of felonies – up to 1 year

The Parliament settled a time limit of 6 months for preventive arrest, excepting the cases of alleged felonies for which the maximum term of preventive arrested is 1 year. The Parliament approved on July 28 the aforementioned amendments to the Code of Penal Procedure. The persons who committed offences for which legislation stipulates maximum punishments of 15 years are included in the first category while the second category includes the persons charged with committing felonies for which they can be punished with maximum imprisonment term of 25 years or life imprisonment. According to the new amendments, after the aforementioned terms expire, the indicted person can be detained only in exceptional cases, until the sentence grounded on a warrant of the hierarchically superior court at the justified proposal of the general prosecutor or his deputies passes. According to the authors, these amendments are complying with the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights.