Project: Firearms Possession and Human (In)Security: Impact on youth and gender based violence15Jul2016
Government Announces Harsh Battle against Family and Other Violence in Society
As a part of the battle against violence, Serbia would change the criminal law and introduce new crimes – sexual harassment and stalking, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced on July 15, news agencies reported. We will try to increase the minimal penalty and increase the maximum penalty, Vucic said. He said that increase of maximum penalties of imprisonment did not give expected results in practice so far and thus it was decided to increase the minimum penalty.
“This means that there could be no suspended sentence, but there must be imprisonment, primarily for three crimes – sexual intercourse with a child, sexual intercourse with a disabled person and rape. If we say that the attempt could be penalized and we increase the minimum penalty, then it we can have results in practice also”, Vucic said.
He added that the problem of violence within the family, violence among peers and hooliganism were also discussed and the state would be ready to deal with all these types of violence in the upcoming period.
Vucic also announced enacting of new laws on protection from violence in the family and laws on free legal assistance and he added that the Government would work on better coordination between police, prosecution, education, health and social work centers in order to prevent violence.
“These are all system things that we must show to violent people that Serbia is a normal state in which you have no right to endanger other people’s rights. We must severely attack in order to reduce violence”, Vucic said.
Serbian Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic said that the new law would also prescribe a new mechanism for functioning of specialized expert services, police officers and prosecutors.
A special procedure would be introduced where reported violence would be forwarded to specialized officer for risk assessment and based on that further actions would be taken and the court could reach an urgent measure to remove the violent person from the house for 30 days.
“If the violent person should not honor that measure, the person could receive a penalty of imprisonment for 30 days”, Selakovic said.
He emphasized that the current penalty policy was around or below the minimum, which was the reason for proposed change of the law that the courts should implement.
Photo: Trofire.com
