Adequacy of Penal Policy in Criminal Cases of Organized Crime

Abstract

Organized crime is a serious form of crime, whether it is viewed in the criminological sense or as the criminal justice response to this phenomenon. In this regard, the penal policy of the legislator should be proportionate to the gravity of organized crime. However, the penal policy of the courts does not reflect the stated intentions, which is primarily reflected in relatively mild criminal penalties for criminal offenses of organized crime. Although the case law does not contravene the law, i.e. contra legem, because it moves within the boundaries prescribed by the law, it is obvious that the issue is about imbalance of punishment for these criminal offenses, even when it comes to mitigating of the sentence of imprisonment. This paper will provide an analysis of the criminal law framework of organized crime prescribed by the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CC BiH), as well as an analysis (statistical and descriptive) of the jurisprudence in the criminal cases of organized crime before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Court of BiH) for the period 2015-2018. As it is not justified and desirable for the legislator's criminal policy and court case jurisprudence to have a different approach in relation to these criminal offenses (different valuation and grading of severity of organized crimes), we will also make certain proposals for de lege ferenda. The paper is a continuation of earlier researches of this problem and is based on the analysis of court judgments in organized crime cases.

Criminal Groups – Criminology and Security Perspectives (Case Study: Bosnia and Herzegovina)

“…The analysis included 21 organised crime court cases, in which 27 judgments were passed on 44 people. Individual criminal offences perpetrated by organised criminal groups were selected using subject analysis (see Šikman, 2019;Simović & Šikman, 2019).…”

“…It should also be noted that the USAID (2019) published the "Universal Benchbook on How to Prosecute and Adjudicate Corruption, Economic Crime, and Organized Crime Cases", dealing with important issues in prosecuting and adjudicating those criminal offences. Finally, two studies, which were the starting point of our research, were published (Šikman, 2019(Šikman, , Simović & Šikman, 2019. What was concluded is that judicial practice in criminal cases is quite unequal and different (Šikman, 2019), which certainly had an impact on the appropriateness of the penal policy in these cases (Simović & Šikman, 2019).…”

“…Finally, two studies, which were the starting point of our research, were published (Šikman, 2019(Šikman, , Simović & Šikman, 2019. What was concluded is that judicial practice in criminal cases is quite unequal and different (Šikman, 2019), which certainly had an impact on the appropriateness of the penal policy in these cases (Simović & Šikman, 2019).…”

“…This problem may be regarded as particularly pronounced, given that there is extensive judicial practice regarding organised crime in B&H, because criminal proceedings have been conducted for these crimes before the courts of all instances and jurisdictions since 2003(Simović & Šikman, 2019).…”