Personal Finding And Collaboration Agreement In Simplified Contravention Procedure: Between Procedural Efficiency And Fair Trial Guarantees

Résumé

The modernization of contravention law in the Republic of Moldova introduced, through Chapter VI¹ of the Contravention Code, two abbreviated ways of resolving a contravention case: examination of the act based on the personal finding of the ascertaining agent (Article 451¹) and the collaboration agreement (Article 451⁵). Objectives: this article examines whether the two procedures express the same legal logic and whether the reduction of sanction they offer is equally certain and predictable. Prior work: Moldovan doctrine has justified both procedures by the reduced social danger of certain contraventions and has called for a clearer delimitation of their scope, while the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova has distinguished them by reference to the need for additional evidence. Approach: the two procedures are compared on the grounds of their evidentiary premises, the statutory formula used for computing the reduced sanction, the regime of appeals, and the guarantees required by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on administrative sanctions falling within the autonomous notion of a “criminal charge”. Results, implications and value: contrary to a widespread reading, both provisions rely on an equally fixed statutory fraction (one half of the legal minimum, respectively one half of the legal maximum), so the real asymmetry between them lies not in the certainty of the quantum, but in the evidentiary threshold for eligibility and, more importantly, in the absence of an autonomous remedy against the refusal to conclude a collaboration agreement. The article proposes a reform centred on individualized sanctioning followed by a uniform legal reduction, together with clearer guarantees concerning judicial review of both the final decision and the refusal to conclude the agreement.