30.10.2024.
Organized by the Ministry of Justice, and as part of the public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code (CC) and the Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), a round table was held on October 30, 2024 in Belgrade, at the Palace of Justice.
In addition to the Working Group of the Ministry of Justice members, which drafted the proposed changes, the round table was attended by, among others, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and civil society representatives. For the first two hours, the members of the Working Group informed the attendees about the amendments to the law.
Over thirty people signed up for the discussion, and the gathering lasted over seven hours. A few things are obvious – the interest of the professional public is great; The event was exhaustingly long, and it is obvious that each of the laws should have been dedicated to a round table in Belgrade, instead of a single event.
There have been a lot of good and constructive suggestions. All participants agreed that it was necessary to extend the public debate. We have heard from the Minister of Justice that the Ministry has nothing against extending the public debate, but the European Union does not allow them to do so. We think this isn't true.
The representatives of the Working Group did their best to respond to the questions and suggestions of the discussants and stated that they would try to incorporate some of the presented proposals into the Draft. What is unclear to the representatives of the Judicial Base (and probably to other participants as well) is that if even a part of the numerous proposals is included in the Draft, we will have a significantly amended Draft. And if the public hearing is not extended – the question arises as to where and when the public will be able to comment on any newly included changes.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Judicial Base South – Ivan Ilić, professor at the Department of Criminal Law Sciences at the Faculty of Law in Niš, and Dimitrije Andrejić, teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law in Niš. Mihajlo Čolak attended the gathering on behalf of the Human Rights Committee of Niš.
Professor Ilić had an excellent presentation during the discussion, which intrigued the members of the Working Group. Among other things, he pointed out the inadequacy of the provisions of the Draft CPC amending the existing Article 77 of the CPC, and stated that the wording "without jeopardizing one's own maintenance and the maintenance of the person he is legally obliged to serve" should be removed from the newly proposed wording of Article 77 of the CPC, "if the criminal proceedings are conducted for a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for more than three years, and the complexity, gravity or special circumstances of the case justify it or if it is required by reasons of equity" (paragraph 1) and "on the financial status of the person who is legally obliged to support him, or who are obliged by law to support him" (paragraph 2). Article 77 of the Criminal Procedure Code in paragraphs 1 and 2 should read: "A defendant who, due to his financial situation, is unable to pay the remuneration and costs of the defense counsel, shall be appointed a defense counsel at his request, although there are no reasons for mandatory defense. In that case, the costs of defense shall be borne by the court's budgetary resources." (Status 1.)

In the past year, the team of the Judicial Base South has been working on its proposals for amendments to the CPC, and at one time submitted them to the Working Group of the Ministry of Justice, through the mechanism of the National Convention on the EU (in addition to Professors Ilic and Mihajlo Čolak, this team also consists of Andrija Ivic, a public prosecutor from Niš and Miodrag Petković, a lawyer from Niš).
PBJ believes that several proposed changes to the CPC are good, and will improve the position of the defendant, the injured party, and the efficiency of the criminal procedure itself. On the other hand, in the opinion of the PBJ, there are several necessary legislative interventions without which it will be difficult to achieve an efficient and fair criminal justice procedure. Some of them are:
1) Judicial Police and Investigation Centres - establishment of investigation centers and judicial police, which would be directly subordinate to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
2) Privileged witnesses - Prevent abuse of the right to absentee testimony of privileged witnesses. Limit the summoning of the injured party to the possibility of refusing to give testimony as a privileged witness at the first examination.
3) Service of documents - Change the rules on the service of documents to the defendant, using electronic means of communication (possibly, with the prior consent of the defendant).
4) Defense of the poor - The proposed amendments presented in the Draft, which refers to Article 77 of the CPC, are not good and will bring a lot of doubts.
5) The decision on the conduct of the investigation and the decision on the dismissal of the KP should be decided by one authority (or directly higher public prosecutor's office, or court).
The Judicial Base South did not deal with a more detailed analysis of the Criminal Code, but it had previously pointed out that the abolition of Article 136 of the Evidence Procedure was a wrong intention and that this amendment to the Criminal Code must be abandoned.