engleski

Relieving criminal justice system in cases of less serious criminal offenses: penal order and conditional deferral of criminal prosecution

The reform of criminal procedural law in the Republic of Croatia in 2008 and the departure from the traditional mixed type of criminal procedure has brought, among other novelties, an expansion of different forms of consensual procedure. The aim of this contribution is to analyse whether Croatian criminal procedural law provides adequate consensual mechanisms to avoid trial in the case of minor criminal offenses in order to relieve the judiciary and achieve the goals of criminal justice system's humanization which especially gains in importance in times of crisis. There are several consensual mechanisms prescribed exclusively for less serious criminal offenses (punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to five years) in the Croatian Criminal Procedure Act and here focus is on those forms that avoid public trial: penal order and conditional deferral of criminal prosecution. Author examines national legislative framework, problems in practice and places these institutions in the comparative (European) legal context. Unlike the procedure by penal order, which ends with a conviction of defendant and is relatively widely used in the Croatian state attorney’s practice, the conditional deferral of criminal prosecution as a model of diversion presupposes the absence of formal sanctioning and is hardly applied at all. It is therefore necessary to detect reasons for this and strengthen the application of conditional deferral in practice which would contribute to the achievement of the goals of restorative justice. Furthermore, certain ambiguities in the provisions on the procedure by penal order are identified. It is concluded that both of these institutions, given the different goals they achieve, are needed in Croatian criminal procedure law. However, a clear delineation of the purpose and reasons for the application of these two institutions in practice seems necessary in order to implement them effectively.

penal order, conditional deferral of criminal prosecution, consensual forms

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