Statement on the requirements that should be placed on prosecutors regarding the documentation of arrest warrants

Summary of the decision: On their own initiative, the Parliamentary Ombudsmen have investigated the matter of the requirements that should be placed on prosecutors regarding the documentation of arrest warrants. The Parliamentary Ombudsman states that, in present-day criminal procedure, it is self-evident that public authorities and individual officers must be able to demonstrate the legal grounds and justification for their decisions, not least when the decision relates to coercive measures that are especially intrusive for the individual. Moreover, the democratic control that the Parliamentary Ombudsmen and others are empowered to exercise requires adequate possibilities to subsequently review the measures that have been taken. For such a review to be conducted, it must be clear which considerations the decision was based on.

Primarily for reasons of legal certainty and legitimacy, the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s conclusion is that higher demands should be placed on the documentation of an arrest warrant than seems to be the case today. The prosecutor should therefore always describe the circumstances on which the suspicion of crime is based and why she or he believes that one or more of the special grounds for detention exist. Additional deliberations may also need to be documented depending on the circumstances of the case in question.