Serbia is Planning Dangerous Changes to Criminal Code

There are 15 of them, ranging from the crime of murdering representatives of the highest state authorities to genocide. Sentences of 30 to 40 years in prison will be abandoned, so Serbian judges will have to choose between 20 years and life imprisonment when sentencing people so convicted.

This will most likely result in an increase in the number of 20-year sentences, as few judges will want to take responsibility for impounding someone in prison for their entire life without parole.

Instead of allowing judges to choose between sentences of 20 to 40 years, and life imprisonment, the proposed changes will force them to choose between 20 years and life. The likely result, paradoxically, will be milder penalties for some of the gravest crimes.

Unfortunately, the introduction of life prison sentences is not the only change in the criminal code awaiting us.

The changes cannot be seen as a whole without knowing that the last year-and-a-half in Serbia will be remembered in legal circles as dominated by the fight for an independent judiciary.

While judges, prosecutors and attorneys, together with international institutions, have criticized the government's apparent intention to curb the independence of the judiciary and subordinate it to the executive, the criminal code amendments are having almost the same effect, by restricting judges' liberty in determining sentences.

The articles on mandatory aggravating circumstances confirm this. If someone has already been sentenced for an intentional crime in the past five years, the court is now obliged to take this as an aggravating circumstance, and cannot pronounce a sentence below the legal minimum within the limits set forth by law.

Illustration. Photo: Pixabay

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