The conviction rate of the National Prosecution Service (NPS) of the Department of Justice (DoJ) will drastically increase if its prosecutors are allowed to investigate and conduct buildup of criminal cases, an international prosecutor said Thursday.

“If it is the prosecutor that’s conducting the case build up, definitely the success rate of NPS would definitely, drastically increase,” said former DoJ Senior State Prosecutor Jude Romano during a DoJ-hosted webinar on Investigation of International Human Rights Laws Violations and Prosecution in International Tribunals.

Romano, who was recommended by the DoJ and picked to become an international war crimes prosecutor in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2002, pointed out that “our prosecutors here does not investigate or involve in any case buildup but they do the preliminary investigation (PI).”

During the PI, he explained “that they evaluate and analyze the evidence presented by both parties.”

“In that process, the investigating prosecutor determines which evidence outweighs the other and finally decide whether the evidence presented would warrant the dismissal of the complaint or the filing of the information,” he said.

"Recounting his experiences as an international war crimes prosecutor, Romano said he was also tasked to conduct investigations of war crimes in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“I was the one really doing the investigation, talking to witnesses, taking their statements, gathering evidence which was exciting and challenging,” he recalled about his work in Bosnia.

Romano said that he handled 13 war crimes cases in both countries and managed to secure convictions in all the cases.

The lawyer said, if a prosecutor is conducting the investigation of the case, “you are in full control of your case.”

“So you will not file an indictment until you are very sure that you can convict. You are not only gathering evidence to meet the threshold of probable cause in order to file an indictment but, since you are the prosecutor who will ultimately prosecute the case, you are already gathering evidence that you believe would be able stand the scrutiny in court,” Romano said.

“Sometimes the law enforcers would just after meeting the threshold of probable cause,” he added.

Though such system will benefit the country, Romano admitted that manpower problems will hamper its implementation should a law be passed or amendments be made to the Rules of Court that would allow prosecutors to be involved in investigations.

“If the prosecutor should be involved in the investigation, then the prosecutor cannot do the PI. It should be another entity or it should be a judge,” he added.