The Ministry of Justice issued a call for a public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) and the Draft Law on the Criminal Code (CC) on September 10, 2025, with a deadline of only twenty days for submitting comments, exclusively via email. Such a deadline, given the scope and significance of the amendments to two systemic criminal laws, is extremely inappropriate and unacceptable.
An additional problem is that the debate is being conducted without the presentation of the drafts by the proposer and without organizing public debates, thus violating the principle of transparency and inclusiveness. This repeats the situation from last year when the procedure was halted precisely due to objections from the professional public regarding the process and the proposed repressive amendments.
Comments submitted during the previous debate were not considered, and the proposed amendments further undermine the achieved standards of human rights and criminal legislation. Moreover, there are currently no prerequisites for holding a serious social debate because there is no necessary trust that the proposer will consider the suggestions of the professional public and interested citizens with due care.
Due to all the aforementioned reasons, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) will not submit comments to the Ministry via email but will present its objections and proposals to the public to prevent the undermining of achieved standards.
HLC Comments on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code [Full text in Serbian available here]
As with the previously proposed CPC amendments, the current draft does not improve the position of victims and witnesses in proceedings. On the contrary, certain proposals substantially undermine it. The proposer has retained the proposal to introduce an appeal against the decision to obtain the status of a particularly vulnerable witness, which, especially considering victims of sexual violence and victims of domestic violence, jeopardizes the position of a particularly vulnerable witness. Such an amendment negates the protection provided by the provision and opens the space for further intimidation of witnesses by the mere possibility of challenging the decision that provides them protection.
The current draft also fails to introduce a provision prohibiting examination of victims and witnesses in sexual offense cases regarding their prior sexual history, and does not prohibit the use of the victim’s consent as a defense in proceedings for crimes against humanity and international law. The Humanitarian Law Center also believes that it is necessary to allow victims, alongside the parties, to propose the determination of expert examination in the procedure. The negative practice so far regarding the decision on property claims has shown that victims should be allowed to appeal the verdict in the part related to the property claim.
Furthermore, the expansion of material conditions for the application of the institute of postponing criminal prosecution leads to the relativization of criminal responsibility and the purpose of criminal sanctions. The proposed amendments retain the proposal concerning the changed concept of investigation, i.e., greater judicial oversight in the investigation, which implies a return to the inquisitorial criminal procedure.
HLC Comments on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code [Full text in Serbian available here]
Regarding the proposed amendments to the CC, it is evident that the proposers were guided by penal populism. There is a noticeable increase in the number of criminal offenses for which life imprisonment is threatened, but also that the proposer did not justify the proposed solutions with facts that would indicate the effectiveness of such a decision.
Unacceptable are the amendments concerning the introduction of the repressive criminal offense “publication of materials advising the commission of a criminal offense,” as well as the proposed deletion of the aggravated form of the criminal offense “extortion of testimony,” which is consequently dangerous and irresponsible.
The proposed amendments also introduce for the first time the criminal offense “sexual intercourse without consent” into criminal legislation, whereby the proposers have abandoned the improvement of the definition of rape, so the commission of the offense still requires the use of force, not the lack of consent, which is contrary to the Istanbul Convention and international standards. Instead, as a compromise solution, the introduction of a new criminal offense is proposed, allowing most cases of sexual acts without consent to be qualified as sexual intercourse without consent, whose criminal sanction is milder compared to the criminal offense of rape and also provides for the possibility of conditional release.
