Considerations on the Preventive Seizure of Criminal Assets and the Opportunity of Liquidating Seized Movable Assets in Criminal Proceedings

Abstract

The preventive seizure of criminal assets is a procedural coercive remedy through which assets belonging to the criminal suspect, the criminal defendant, or any other persons provided by law, are frozen, for the purpose of maintaining the economic value of said assets, and that of preventing the concealment, destruction, disposition or abscondment from investigation of said assets. The current legal framework offers the possibility of selling the property that falls under preventive seizure during the criminal trial, the statutory provisions being justified by the continuous difficulties that had arisen in the judicial practice with respect to maintaining a constant level in the valuation of attached movable property until the final judgment in the criminal case. The relevant statutes were adopted to prevent harm to the common public interest, but also to the private interests of selected participants in the criminal trial, which are also at risk due to the inescapable economic processes of property depreciation and degradation over time. The analytical approach initiated in this chapter aims to present the theoretical and practical elements that characterize the procedure for the sale of seized movable assets during the criminal trial.