Posebna ovlašćenja državnih organa u krivičnom postupku za suzbijanje organizovanog kriminala
Special Powers of State Institutions in Fighting Organised Crime

Summary/Abstract: One of the key features of organised crime is its ability to adapt to changing circumstances flexibly, and this has clear repercussions for anti-organised crime policy, which must be equally flexible. This fact motivated the enactment of the 2003 Law on the Amendments of the Law on the Organisation and Jurisdiction of State Institutions in Fighting Organised crime, which contained special authorisations not usually present in the policy of controlling “ordinary” crime. Certain crime control techniques, such as general oversight, recording, optical observation and collection of data from bank accounts, belong to the general techniques applied in the pre-criminal procedure phase of controlling any type of crime. In addition to these techniques, there are other methods, such as the use of provocateurs (witnesses who are allowed to commit a criminal offence in order to induce the suspect to commit another, more serious, crime), provision of simulated services in order to detect propensity to corruption and other types of crime, engagement of undercover interrogators and a controlled delivery of forbidden goods. These methods have proven effective in many parts of the world, as well as in Serbia, and they are typically used only to control organised crime, although they are partly problematic from the point of view of protection of civil and human rights. The judicial process is greatly assisted by a liberal application of seizure of objects and funds, as well as by a liberal policy of police detention of persons suspected of being involved in organised crime. These methods are particularly controversial from the point of view of constitutionality and legality, because some of them are contrary both to domestic constitutional law and the international documents that oblige Serbia. Despite the morally and legally controversial trade-off between traditional norms of constitutionality and human rights and the techniques and methods for fighting organised crime envisaged in the new law, the characteristics of organised crime and the results that have been achieved by the application of these special methods seem to suggest that such methods are necessary.

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