The Public Prosecution Office emphasizes legal standards for issuing and reviewing search warrants.
The Public Prosecution Office has issued new directives to public prosecutors and assistant prosecutors across various courts of appeal and first instance courts regarding the review and management of search warrants. The Office affirmed that a search warrant is a legal procedure used to monitor individuals wanted by justice, either for suspected criminal acts or to enforce judicial rulings. However, it falls under procedures that affect personal freedom, necessitating a cautious and exceptional approach.
It underscored the necessity of issuing search warrants only when there are valid legal grounds, with documentation either in writing or verbally in urgent cases, and conducting periodic reviews of all warrants to ensure their legal justifications remain valid. Warrants should be automatically canceled once the individual sought is presented to the Public Prosecution or the case is referred to the investigating judge or court ruling. Continuous coordination with judicial police is essential to update and limit warrants that can be canceled, while adhering to the operational guide to enhance criminal investigations, which outlines the legal and procedural standards for issuing and canceling search warrants.
The Office noted that the efforts of public prosecutors and assistant prosecutors in implementing these directives have led to the cancellation of a significant number of warrants that have expired or lost their legal justifications. It emphasized the importance of continuing these efforts to protect individual freedoms, and requested updates on the status of search warrants at the courts before the end of October 2025, along with any challenges in implementation.
