Upon receipt of a criminal complaint or a proposal to prosecute, the police are obliged to collect information and evidence without undue delay and, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 147 of the ZKP, are obliged to inform the public prosecutor of the criminal complaint. Pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 148 of the ZKP, the police officer is obliged to draw up a report or an official record of all facts and circumstances which are established in the course of individual acts, and which may be relevant to the criminal proceedings.

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The complainant informed the Ombudsman that he had submitted a written complaint to the Žalec Police Station (PS) for an offence under the second paragraph of Article 285 of the Criminal Code (KZ-1) against his neighbour, who had allegedly deliberately filled in or removed a landmark marking the boundary between the plots of land of the two neighbours. The Žalec Police Station did not deal with his complaint for more than seven months, so the petitioner informed the Celje Police Directorate (PD) and later the Ministry of the Interior (MoI) in writing. Only after more than nine months from the lodging of the complaint did a police officer from Žalec PS visit the complainant. By the time he contacted the Ombudsman, his report or criminal complaint had still not been decided.  

The Ombudsman made an enquiry with the Ministry of the Interior to verify the circumstances of the processing of the complainant's complaint, as well as whether the state prosecutor was informed of the complaint. The MoI provided the information that the criminal complaint was entered in the records of the Žalec Police Station on 24 May 2021 and assigned to a police officer for resolution on 24 May 2021. On 22 June 2021, the police officer wrote an alert for suspicion of a crime, and then a request to the Žalec Geodetic Administration dated 14 February 2022. On the same day, the officer collected information from the suspect, who denied the crime. The MoI also provided the information that the competent State Prosecutor's Office had not been informed by Žalec PS about the handling of the suspicion of the crime in question and that it would be informed when Žalec PS submitted a criminal complaint or a report to the Prosecutor's Office in accordance with the ninth paragraph of Article 148 of the ZKP or the tenth paragraph of Article 148 of the ZKP. The Žalec PS cited the collection of documentation and evidence in the specific case as the reason for the lengthy processing of the complaint. At the same time, the Ministry of the Interior informed the Ombudsman that irregularities or deviations had already been identified at the Žalec Police Station in relation to the longer time limits for solving crime cases and the failure to inform the competent public prosecutor's office in the framework of the general supervision and that the elimination of the identified irregularities would be determined during the repeated supervision.

The explanations of the MoI, as summarised above, did not fully satisfy the Ombudsman, as the MoI did not take a clear position on the apparent slowness of the handling of the criminal complaint and the failure to inform the public prosecutor's office in the specific case. He therefore made a further enquiry to the MoI as to whether all necessary measures would also be taken to remedy the irregularities identified in the handling of the criminal complaint.

This time, the MoI indicated that, according to the findings of the Celje PD, the processing of the complaint had taken too long and that the procedure for informing the public prosecutor's office had also been irregular. According to the fourth paragraph of Article 147 of the ZKP, a criminal complaint must be submitted to the public prosecutor's office within 30 days at the latest, and if this is not possible for justified reasons (e.g. due to the gathering of information), an interim report must be submitted to the public prosecutor's office, in which it must be justified why it was not possible to submit a criminal complaint. As a reason why the first police action in connection with the investigation of the suspicion of a crime was carried out only eight months after the crime was reported, Žalec PP explained that during that time, information was also collected from nearby residents, and since no useful information was obtained, the police did not prepare any written reports. However, the Ministry of the Interior provided the information that the report sent to the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Celje also did not show any activity of the police officers until 14 February 2022, when the police officer wrote to the Velenje Regional Geodetic Administration, Geodetic Office Žalec, asking for documentation. On the same day, the police also obtained a statement from the suspect.

The MoI reiterated its assurance that the irregularities identified would be re-verified during the follow-up and, if not corrected, appropriate action would be taken.

The Ombudsman found the complaint to be well-founded. It should not be overlooked that the irregularities identified cannot be remedied in the case of this (and other) criminal charges - there is no way to compensate for the delay between the reporting of the offence and the start of the collection of information and evidence. Equally important is the timely notification of the acceptance of a criminal complaint to the competent public prosecutor, who can guide the work of the police officers and can also set the timeframes within which they must take action. The explanations of PP Žalec that the police officers collected notifications but did not prepare "written reports" cannot be followed, as according to the second paragraph of Article 148 of the ZKP, a police officer is obliged to draw up a report or an official record of all facts and circumstances which are established in individual acts and which may be relevant to criminal proceedings, and of objects found or seized; moreover, as the Ministry of the Interior informed the prosecutor, there is no indication in the report to the prosecutor's office that the police officer made a report on the facts and circumstances of the case from the time of the receipt of the report until 14  February 2022. In the Ombudsman's view, any collection of information (even informally) for the purpose of verifying the suspicion of a crime is an official act, which is subject to the drawing up of a report or an official record, since the fact that a person is not aware of certain circumstances may also be important information for further investigation and, last but not least, for the decision of the injured party whether to proceed or take over the prosecution of the suspect in the event of the dismissal of the criminal complaint. Therefore, the police officer should also keep a proper record of the interviews with the 'close residents', if any.

The Ombudsman thus expressed his expectation that the MoI would implement his recommendation that, in the course of the repeated supervision of the handling of this and other criminal charges at Žalec OS, it carefully examine the speed and adequacy of the collection of information and evidence, as well as the notification of the competent public prosecutor's office, and ensure that a similar case of handling a criminal charge would not be repeated, regarding which the MoI had provided assurance. 16.1-8/2022