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Retroactive prosecution of transitional economic crimes in Croatia – testing the legal principles and human rights

Economic crimes that result in substantial loss of profit and are not prosecuted can have a major effect on an overall economy, society and rule of law, the latter being particularly evident in transitional societies. Along with the growing anomie in transitional societies, the impunity for economic crimes sometimes reinforces impunity for gross violation of human rights, especially in war-torn societies. Furthermore, establishing criminal responsibility of CEOs or company managers is everything but easy, especially when taking into consideration the complexity of these crimes and its elements. Croatia is facing a difficult task in combating serious economic crimes committed in the period of privatization and ownership transformation and during the war period (hereinafter referred to as transitional economic crimes). In order to enable prosecution of those crimes, Constitution of Croatia was amended in June 2010 and subsequently the Law on Exemption from Statute of Limitations for War Profiteering and Crimes Committed in the Process of Ownership Transformation and Privatization was passed in May 2011. The key issues arising from the application of this Law are: how to approach the principle of non-retroactivity, legal certainty and/or principle of justice and efficiently deal with serious economic crimes that occurred in the last two decades. The Croatian courts have rendered first instance judgments based on the new Law in eight cases, the most important being the one against former prime minister of Croatia Ivo Sanader. This Chapter addresses possible answers to ambiguities regarding the application of these new legal tools. Furthermore, the new Croatian Criminal Code should stimulate the suppression of white collar crimes in Croatian society. The Croatian experience and its legal solutions could serve as a valuable contribution to the worldwide jurisprudence in (re)building new transitional societies and its market economies, either by adopting Croatian solutions or by questioning the reasoning for its rendering.

economic crime, Croatia, retroactive prosecution, statute of limitations

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