ОДМЕРАВАЊЕ КАЗНЕ ЗА КРИВИЧНО ДЕЛО УЧИЊЕНО ИЗ МРЖЊЕ
Sentencing in Hate Crimes

Summary/Abstract: Within the scope of amendments and supplements to the Serbian Criminal Code of 2012, the legislator introduced a special circumstance for sentencing the perpetrators of hate crimes. Thus, if the criminal offence has been committed out of hatred on the grounds of another’s race, religious creed, national or ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, this special circumstance shall be regarded by the court as an aggravating circumstance (unless it has been explicitly prescribed as an element of the criminal offence at issue). Taking into account a relatively short period from introducing this legal institute into our criminal law system, this legal provision has not been subject to theoretical analysis, nor has it been more substantially applied in the judicial practice; thus, there is a lack of clear and specific standpoints on this legal institute. In this article, the author endeavors to address two key questions: 1) whether it is justifiable to introduce such a special circumstance in sentencing hate crimes, particularly having in mind the overall capacities of our national legislation prior to introducing this legal norm, the existing trends in respect of hate crimes in our country, the obligations stemming from international documents, and the comparative law experiences; and 2) what kind of problems may be encountered in the application of this legal norm and how these problems may be handled.

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