The Criminal Liability of Legal Entities in the Former Yugoslav Territory

Abstract

The article is dedicated to review of laws of countries of the so-called Yugoslav criminal law group, which originated in the former Yugoslav territory. The article describes the concept of the former Yugoslav territory as the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), consisting of 10 entities: the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Slovenia, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Montenegro, the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Srpska, the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the partially recognized Republic of Kosovo, each of which has adopted its own criminal laws. The mentioned states follow the SFRY criminal law traditions to a greater or lesser extent, which largely ensures similarity of criminal laws of these states and gives a possibility to unite them in the Yugoslav criminal law group. All of the states recognize the criminal liability of legal entities. The author points out the common historical, international and political roots of such liability; reviews options of establishment of liability of legal entities by inclusion of the corresponding provisions in the national criminal codes or adoption of specific criminal laws on liability of legal entities as well as statutory resolutions making it possible to consider a legal entity as a criminal liability subject; gives a scope of legal entities, which cannot be brought to criminal liability; emphasizes the differences in the determination of crimes, which can lead to bringing legal entities to criminal liability; notes that in some countries of the reviewed group legal entities may be brought to criminal liability only for specifically indicated crimes while other countries have no such limitation; analyzes the bases of liability of legal entities stipulated by criminal laws and the models of criminal liability of legal entities implemented in the states of the Yugoslav group: an identification model and an extended identification model; states application of articles of the general parts of national criminal codes for bringing of legal entities to criminal liability.