engleski

Pre-trial Procedure in Croatia

During the last decade, Croatian criminal procedure has been going through legislative reforms, which started with enacting a new Criminal Procedure Act in 2008, and continued in several legislative amendments, mostly aiming to implement European legal standards into Croatian law, but also to restore the disturbed procedural balance. Namely, the major change in the 2008 reform was replacing the traditional judicial investigation with the prosecutorial one and empowering the State Attorneys with more repressive authorities, in order to reinforce efficiency of criminal proceedings in a whole. Yet once adopted, the new Criminal Procedure Act was severely criticised not only in the domestic literature, but also by the Croatian Constitutional Court which in 2012 declared unconstitutional and vacated over forty legislative provisions of the new Criminal Procedure Act, which required further legislative interventions. After the recent reforms, the pre- trial procedure in Croatia is composed of inquiries, simplified investigation or investigation (depending on the gravity of criminal offence), and of the indicting process, with mandatory judicial control of the indictment. Besides analysing the structure of the pre-trial procedure, the paper provides an overview of basic principles ruling these stages of proceedings, including the principle of mandatory prosecution, the inquisitorial principle and the principle of judicial control over investigatory and prosecutorial powers of the State Attorney. The State Attorney, as a State organ in charge for conducting investigation, is attributed with significant powers and duties regarding gathering evidence, as well as regarding applying various coercive measures against defendant. Those powers and duties are analysed, while particular attention is dedicated to legal position and rights of the suspect and defendant.

pre-trial procedure, criminal procedure, Croatia, investigation, evidence, coercive measures, defendant, suspect, defence rights

nije evidentirano