Minister of Justice discusses measures of crime with Reform Party

16. March 05

This morning the Minister of Justice Ken-Marti Vaher meets the Parliament fraction of Reform Party and explains the project on objectives of criminal institutions for 2005.
"Unfortunately I cannot assume the honour to introduce measures concerning investigation of crimes in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Estonia,” the Minister of Justice underlines in the meeting. “The figures indicating criminal cases to be sent to court has already been used by the Customs Board that was acting within the administrative field of Siim Kallas, the Ministry of Finance in 2001 when 15 criminal cases and thus at least the same number of defendants were planned to send to court. Exactly the same kind of planning continued under the Minister Harri Õunapuu. The only difference between the plan of Kallas and the present project is that smugglers and people evading taxes was planned to catch by the first one, and narcotics traders and corrupt people by the second one.”

The Ministry of Justice also points out that setting objectives for law-enforcement institutions is general in countries with developed democracies – this have been used in the adjoining state Finland and also in the UK, Netherlands etc.

„It is regrettable that this project of objectives has become the target of misinterpretations. I hope that the discussion emerged has been helpful in ascertaining expectations of society regarding the fight against crime,” the minister says. “My responsibility as the Ministry of Justice is to stand for the rule of law. Statements about existing arresting plans, lists or violations of presumption of innocence are not veracious in the least. By my opinion, the project of objectives developed in law-enforcement institutions is well-justified and necessary in order to successfully fight against crime. In case of need, I am still ready to introduce this document more thoroughly and revise it with you and other interested people.

I think that planning activities of state institutions is not only in accordance with the Constitution but obligatory under the Constitution.”

The Minister of Justice also answered the public letter of seven members of the Parliament.

Ave Mellik
Public Relations Division
Ministry of Justice
Phone +372 6 208 114
GSM +372 56 637086