Lietuvos Respublikos prokuratūros susižinojimo su užsienio valstybių įstaigomis praktika

Abstract

Many factors such as increase of the international crime rate, establishing of the free movement amongst the countries and others have been determining the importance of the international cooperation in the penal field, the aim of which is to administer justice in the penal actions, where the legal help from the foreign countries is needed. The competence of the law-enforcement officers is limited by the territory of the Republic of Lithuania thus in such cases when investigation data, witnesses or suspect himself are located in the other country, crime was committed by the country citizen abroad, convict is hiding in the foreign country etc. the authorities of the other country are addressed for legal assistance in penal action. The grounds for legal assistance are multilateral and bilateral treaties. Sending the requests and carrying them out according the national law fulfill it. Despite the fact that the communication between the two country's authorities is regulated in many acts of legislation, there are still many gaps. For instance, there are no laid down rules (except the rules regarding the European arrest warrant) when the requests for legal assistance should be send via the Office of the Prosecutor General and in which cases – via Ministry of Justice. This and many other issues are being solved in the practice relations that arise while communicating with other countries. The analysis of communication practice can be also useful as it often uncovers the shortcomings and gaps of the legal regulation. The communication practice of the public prosecutor's department in the Republic of Lithuania has not been analyzed as far. The work could be useful developing the international cooperation issues further and for the officers that work in this field as well. The aim of this master graduate work was to define the meaning and importance of the communication in the contemporary criminal procedure and to disclose the communication practice of the public prosecutor's office of the Republic of Lithuania in the period of 1999-2004. The author analyzed the requests for legal assistance, discussed the problems of the communication, collected statistic data. The main research methods are empirical: document analysis, interview and conversation with the experts – the prosecutors of the Office of the Prosecutor General, International relation and legall assistance department. The conclusions are drawn together with the suggestions, statistic data are given in tables and charts.