Romania
Romania regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Romania's criminal law contains a general penalty-enhancement provision and a substantive offence. Police data and prosecution data also include hate speech offences. The Ministry of Administration and Interior, the police, the Prosecutor's Office and the Superior Council of Magistracy collect hate crime data.
How hate crime data is collected
The Romanian Police records all criminal offences in a dedicated database. Romanian investigative police officers have a duty to highlight all aggravating circumstances when registering criminal files that are under investigation. However, there are no designated procedures for recording hate crimes by the police. A working group has been created at the level of the Romanian Police to determine necessary changes to the registration and investigation of hate crimes.
Prosecution files and court files include information about aggravating circumstances. This information is replicated and centralized in the judicial statistics application used by the Ministry of Justice. These data have been collected since 2014.
As of 2018, the authorities have established a statistic data collection mechanism, which introduced two new forms, whereby additional data on hate crimes are collected from the beginning of 2018. The new mechanism provides for monitoring the use of the aggravating circumstance found in article 77, letter "h", from the Criminal Code, and of the criminal offences under the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 31/2002. The change was made by Annex 19 to Order no. 298/2017 of the Prosecutor General of the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, which amended the Order no. 213/2015 on the organization and functioning of the information system of the Public Ministry.
Official Data
National developments
The Romanian Police continued implementing the project "Integrated approach for prevention of victimization in Roma communities" in partnership with ODIHR and funded by a grant from the government of Norway. The project also addressed hate crimes.
The National Institute of Magistracy (NIM) organized an initial training for future judges and prosecutors. The programme included the scope of hate crimes and the manner in which they should be addressed. Three hundred and two judicial trainees participated.
Hate crime workshops for judges and prosecutors were conducted focusing on European Court of Human Rights case law.
International reports
Bias against Roma and Sinti
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In a letter to Prime Minister of Romania, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe observed that police violence against Roma people remained a concern, as attested to by the number of such cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights.
Key observation
ODIHR observes that Romania's law enforcement agencies have not recorded the bias motivations of hate crimes.
