“Since the start of the application of the Organisation and Competencies of Government Authorities in Fighting Organised Crime, Terrorism and Corruption Act on 1 March 2018, 1,007 persons have been acussed of crimes of corruption, 614 of which have been convicted“, State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice Radomir Ilić stated at 59th Annual Conference of the Association for Criminal Law and Practice held in Zlatibor.
The State Secretary said that between 1 March and July this year, there were a total of 628 judgements, 12 of which were acquittals and two were case dismissals. “This result has been possible owing to the new structure and the completely new specialisation of the courts, the prosecutor’s offices and the police. All I can comment about this statistical data is ask when that had ever been the case in Serbia”, Mr Ilić remarked. He reiterated that anti-corruption units had been formed within high courts and public prosecutor’s offices in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kraljevo and Niš.
Mr Ilić explained that 2019 had been one of the most turbulent years in terms of criminal law given that in May the most comprehensive and the most radical amendments to the Criminal Code – entering into force on 1 December – had been adopted. He said that life imprisonment had been introduced and the penal policy had become stricter with the amendments, which influenced the prosecutors’ conduct and that of the judges, especially when passing a sentence. He noted that the debate on whether to introduce life imprisonment had begun in 2015 when the Ministry of Justice had proposed it for the first time. He recalled that the proposal had been criticised by the professional community but that the initiative was then launched by the Tijana Jurić Foundation. “We may say that by erasing the prison sentence to 30 to 40 years, we have in a way aligned our Criminal Code with the European judicial practice“, the State Secretary noted, adding that convicted persons sentenced to life imprisonment may request release on probation after 27 years served in person, unless they were convicted of one of the five serious crimes involving children or minors as victims.
Mr Ilić added that the introduction of life imprisonment to the national legal system had somewhat made everyone forget about potentially a more radical novelty, i.e. a harsher penal policy. “We find it inappropriate for someone to appear before the courts as a professional grand robber, almost like a professional thug, but only receive the minimum penalty or a warning“, Ilić concluded.
The Annual Conference of the Association for Criminal Law and Practice is taking place on 19-21 September, in Zlatibor. The name of the conference is “Amendments to the Criminal Legislation and the Status of Judicial Office Holders, and Adequacy of the State’s Response to Criminality”.