ILLEGAL ENTRY OF FOREIGN NATIONALS AS CRIMINAL OFFENCE

Abstract

The paper analyzes the criminal offense of illegal entry, movement and stay in the Republic of Croatia, another Member State of the European Union or a signatory state to the Schengen Agreement under Article 326 of the Criminal Code and its connection with the misdemeanor of the prohibition of assisting a third­country national from Article 43 of the Law on Foreigners with regard to the difficulties and implications that may arise during their delimitation. In particular, the implementation of Council Directive 2002/90/EC on the definition of facilitation of unauthorized entry, transit and residence as well as its harmonization is analyzed. The differentiation between the misdemeanor in question and the criminal offense is not simple and includes a number of factors that in fact depend on each individual case, but when it comes to the classification of criminal offences, the decisive factor is greed, whereas recent case law shows that when it comes to criminal offenses under Article 326 of the Criminal Code, these are well­organized groups that, upon detection, do not shy away from attacking police officers in pursuit of their goals.