BASIC CONCEPTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLANNED MODIFICATIONS TO THE JUVENILE CRIMINAL LAW OF SERBIA

Abstract

The paper explains the basic characteristics of the planned modifications of juvenile criminal law in a conceptual sense. In Serbia, for more than twenty years, the main source of positive juvenile criminal law has been the Law on Juvenile Perpetrators of Criminal Offenses and Criminal Protection of Juveniles. In the reformist Serbian context, which is characterized by constant and often extensive, even radically targeted amendments to a number of laws, including the most important legal sources of criminal substantive and procedural law (the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code), this law is an example of a "long-lived law", which has been "living" without any amendments or supplements since 2005, i.e. since January 2006, when its implementation began. Of course, there are reasons for amendments and supplements to that Law, just as that Law is not without certain legal and technical, and even some essential errors, but despite that, it is applied in practice without major problems. This is because the Law on Juvenile Perpetrators of Criminal Offenses and the Criminal Protection of Juveniles originated from normative solutions from the former Yugoslav juvenile criminal law, when substantive juvenile criminal law was regulated by the rules of the then Criminal Code, procedural juvenile criminal law by the provisions of the Law on Criminal Procedure, and executive juvenile criminal law by the norms of the Law on the Execution of Criminal Sanctions.

Even at the time when the Law on Juvenile Perpetrators of Criminal Offenses and the Criminal Protection of Juveniles was adopted, it was not a “radical” innovation, but the then new Law only improved most of the normative mechanisms that existed until then. Likewise, the planned modifications of Serbian juvenile criminal law, which arise from the Draft Law on Juvenile Offenders and the Protection of Juveniles in Criminal Proceedings, despite the fact that it is a planned completely "new" law, do not essentially represent any break with the previous tradition of Serbian juvenile criminal law, but rather basically represent a far-reaching reform of the existing juvenile criminal law, the main feature of which is that the previous concept, which represents a modified judicial model of criminal law reaction to juvenile crimes, is not abandoned, but within the framework of that concept, a significant improvement of the normative environment is planned, which also implies consistent protection in criminal proceedings of juveniles as injured parties, which boils down to further strengthening of important elements of the restorative justice model.