„ТУЧЕЊЕˮ КАО НАРОЧИТА ЧИНОВНИЧКА КРИВИЦА У КНЕЖЕВИНИ И КРАЉЕВИНИ СРБИЈИ
“BEATING” AS A SPECIAL OFFICIAL CRIME IN THE PRINCIPLE AND KINGDOM OF SERBIA

Summary/Abstract: According to Slobodan Jovanović, the right to punish has always been a symbol of power in our country. Accordingly, since at the beginning of the constitutional regime, the police did not have the right to punish, they were characterized as powerless. However, based on the Police Regulation of 1850, the police were given the right to punish, i.e. “they got a stick in their hands”. On the one hand, having “free hands”, and on the other, without harsh penalties for abuse of the right to punish, the police became inclined to beat the people arbitrarily, “like oxen”. Therefore, in 1861, with amendments and supplements to the Criminal Code for the Principality of Serbia, the legislator singled out “beating” as a special official crime. In other words, in §125 of the Penal Code, the legislator prescribed a penalty for an official who “unauthorizedly beats or causes someone to be beaten.” However, the expression “unauthorizedly beats or causes someone to be beaten” was controversial in many ways, and §125 was interpreted and applied in practice in different ways. Therefore, the discussions that took place regarding §125 of the Penal Code, but also the subject of regulation itself, initiate interest in research. The sensitivity of the issue regulated by §125 of the Criminal Code led to its different interpretation in practice. Thus, it was debatable whether the term “unauthorized” meant the unauthorized execution of corporal punishment or a case where an official beat someone in anger. The prevailing attitude among the professional community was that it was a case where an official beat someone in anger. Another issue that gained such importance, that it even found itself before the Court of Cassation twice, was the question of what is considered beating, i.e. whether a slap can also be included under that term. The Court of Cassation, as well as the professional community, were of the opinion that the legislator, when regulating §125 of the Criminal Code, did not have in mind a slap, but only serious injuries. All in all, the process that begins with the emergence of the intelligentsia in Serbia (which raised its voice against the previously self-imposed police beatings) ends with the legal dilemma of whether an official is allowed to slap someone.

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