Plea-agreement sentence review referral rejected as inadmissible; no ruling on judicial power to reduce negotiated sentence.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice (Înalta Curte de Casaţie şi Justiţie), sitting as a panel for the resolution of legal questions in criminal matters, rejected as inadmissible the referral from the Court of Appeal Bucharest seeking a preliminary ruling on whether, under Articles 480–485 of the Romanian Criminal Procedure Code, a court in the procedure for approving a plea agreement may intervene in the individualization of the sentence agreed upon by the prosecutor and the defendant, with the direct consequence of reducing that sentence. No substantive decision was reached on the legal issue; the referral was dismissed on procedural admissibility grounds, leaving the underlying case (docket no. 41901/3/2016) pending before the referring court. The matter concerns the scope of judicial review in the plea agreement procedure under Romanian criminal procedure, specifically whether a court can modify the negotiated sentence.