НОВИ КРИВИЧНИ ПОСТУПАК СРБИЈЕ ‒ НОВИ РАЗЛОЗИ ЗА УСКЛАЂИВАЊЕ СА ЕВРОПСКИМ ПРАВНИМ СТАНДАРДИМА
New Serbian Criminal Procedure - New Reasons for Harmonization with European Legal Standards

Summary/Abstract: The new criminal procedure, set forth in 2011, represents a compilation of the inquisitive model of preliminary proceedings, on the one hand, and adversarial trial of the Anglo-American type of criminal procedure on the other. Introduction of the public prosecutor’s investigation required a subtle legislative approach to the protection of human rights in criminal proceedings, in order to establish equilibrium between efficient and just procedure. Instead of the expected, the erroneous conception based on the ideas that the public prosecutor’s investigation should be strictly formal as that of a court, that evidence taken by the non-judicial authorities should have the same bearing as those taken by the courts, and that the court should have no role in conducting investigation, resulted in an overly inferior position of the accuses compared to that of the public prosecutor. Beside the fact that such conception can not pass the ECJ test, the specific legal solutions referring the investigation open the question of harmonization with the European legal standards. The provisions on initiation of this phase of the proceedings, not being legally sanctioned, put in question the right of the accused to access justice, as well as his right to an effective legal remedy, and the introduced investigation against the unknown perpetrator, the right to be present at one’s own trial is being jeopardized. Neither do all procedural rules pertaining to the trial support the fair procedure principle: the indirect extortion of evidence from the defense is discordant with the rule that the burden of proof lies on the prosecutor, as one of the main pillars of the assumption of innocence; as well as the broad opportunity to use non-judicial evidence at the hearing without any major legal obstacles, have demolished the principles of directness and contradictoriness. Even some of the minimal right of the defense as well as the guarantees of personal freedom in the course of arrest and detention, are threatened, which alongside previous discrepancies, leads to the conclusion that there are numerous reasons for the new criminal procedure should be harmonized with the European standards, rather than the old one, which has been reformed for that reason.

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