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Report on Joint Initiatives

Description

The report’s overall purpose is to provide Serbian authorities and the Government in general a legally sound basis for improving the legal provisions regulating the pre-investigation and the investigation phase under the new Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).

Summary

In September 2011, Serbia adopted a new CPC that marked a significant change in the form of departure from an inquisitorial model and movement towards a more party-driven system of criminal proceedings. Prosecutorial investigation is one of the most important features of the new CPC. This new system significantly changes the roles of the prosecution and the police and implies a new form of mutual co-operation as well as a need for reciprocal understanding of duties and responsibilities.

In light of the changes introduced by the new CPC, the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) of the Serbian Ministry of Interior (MoI), the OSCE Mission to Serbia Police Affairs Department (PAD) and the U.S. International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) initiated a joint activity aimed at improving the co-operation between the police and the prosecution. A series of events was organised throughout Serbia, offering criminal investigators at the district level and prosecutors from Basic and High Prosecutors’ Offices a forum to discuss the challenges of implementation of the new CPC.

In the course of the 34 round tables, a series of problems regarding the implementation of the new CPC and the co-operation between police and prosecution were identified. Besides the general lack of human and financial resources, which undoubtedly hampers the work of both the prosecution and the police, one of the main causes of challenges in daily work is the inadequacy of the present legal framework and the lack of harmonization between the CPC and the Law on Police.