Amendment of Criminal Legislation in the Context of the Current Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

Following the outbreak of the local COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the Romanian Government amended the criminal legislation by tightening the penalties for the crime of false statements (art. 326 Criminal Code), but also by completing the criminal content and increasing the punishment limits for the crime of thwarting the fight against diseases (art. 352 Criminal Code). In the specialty literature, the crime of thwarting the fight against diseases has not been widely debated, until recently the social need to apply it was minimal. At the same time, this crime does not seem to have been applied under the new Criminal Code, until the beginning of the current epidemic. However, in the context of the events that took place in the first 2 weeks of March 2020 on the territory of the country, new forms of crime were introduced and the punishment limits for the already existing ones were increased. Therefore, if until now the crime of thwarting the fight against diseases had a single form punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years or a fine, which punished only the acts consisting in non-compliance with measures to prevent or combat infectious diseases and only if they had as a result the spread of such a disease, starting with March 20, this crime is much better defined by the legislator and takes into account a series of criminal acts that the authorities have faced lately.