УТИЦАЈ КРИВИЧНЕ ПРЕСУДЕ НА ПАРНИЦУ
THE IMPACT OF CRIMINAL VERDICT ON THE LITIGATION

Summary/Abstract: Among several possible situations giving rise to the issue of relationship between the criminal and civil judiciaries, the subject - matter of this article covers the impact of the criminal verdict on the litigation. Namely, whether it affects the above as a legal enactment or just as one of the possible pieces of evidence? Stanдрoints are exposed of both theoreticians and legislative approaches, including case law of a number of countries. These views cover a wide range of opinions: from the compulsory effect of both convicting and acquitting verdicts of a criminal court, compulsory effect of only the convicting verdict, so that the acquitting is excluded (this is also the solution applied in Yugoslav Law on Litigation procedure, Art. 12, para. 3), and up to the stanдрoint according to which criminal verdict is only another piece of evidence supplied by assumed evidence effect and subject to counter - evidence. Summarizing the discussion, the author confronts two starting points: the one which is the result of the general theory of law, and the other based on legal - political arguments. Opting for the first, he concludes that criminal verdict, relating to the affirmative elements it contains, should have the significance of evidence, follewed by full freedom of the court in assessing it. The author concludes also that the existing solution in the Law on Litigation Procedure of the SFR of Yugoslavia is inconistent, since there is no binding character of the acquitting criminal verdict. This creates difficulties in addition to the usual ones, so that the author suggests - either to accept the arguments against such binding character or to be concequent in the acceptance of both kinds of verdicts, namely the acquitting one, too. This solution could be adopted in the future amendments of mentioned Law on Litigation Procedure.

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