Estonian president signs permission to prepare indictment against Tartu County Court judge

  • 2021-01-26
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN - Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid on Tuesday signed a permission to prepare a statement of charges against Tartu County Court judge Eveli Vavrenjuk.

The Supreme Court en bank last week granted an application by Prosecutor General Andres Parmas seeking to bring charges against Vavrenjuk for several criminal offenses, and forwarded it to the president.

The law provides for special procedures for bringing charges against a judge in order to avoid manifestly unfounded or politically biased accusations. Accordingly, the prosecutor general of the state must first submit a request to the Supreme Court to propose to the president that they consent to the preparation of the indictment. Only then can the prosecutor's office send the indictment to the court of first instance for a substantive hearing.

The prosecutor general applied to the Supreme Court to bring charges against Vavrenjuk already on September 2020; however, the Supreme Court en banc found that the charges were not clear or precise enough to make a proposal to the president. A new application was submitted to the Supreme Court on Dec. 31, 2020, and the request was granted by the Supreme Court en banc on Jan. 19.