Osvrt na zaštitne mere medicinskog karaktera u prekršajnom pravu Srbije

Abstract

In the system of protective measures, the Serbian Law on Misdemeanor stipulates two measures of medical character: mandatory treatment of alcohol and psychoactive substances addicts (article 59) and mandatory psychiatric treatment (article 60). This last protective measure was not recognized by previous misdemeanor legislature, so it was introduced by the current Law on Misdemeanor back in 2013. Mandatory treatment of alcohol and psychoactive substances addicts is designed for misdemeanor perpetrators who are addicted to them, and mandatory psychiatric treatment is designed for incalculable perpetrators and perpetrators with significantly decreased sanity. These protective measures have similarities with medical security measures from Criminal Code, such as mandatory psychiatric treatment and confinement in a psychiatric institution (article 82), mandatory psychiatric treatment at large (article 82), mandatory treatment of drug addicts (article 83) and mandatory treatment of alcohol addicts (article 84). Their similarity also has a legislative cover, for in article 233 of the Law on Implementation of Criminal Sanctions of Serbia it is stipulated that legal provisions of this law about security measures are accordingly applied on implementation of protective measures issued for a misdemeanor. Regardless of conceptual similarity between medical protective measures and medical security measures, there are certain significant differences in their regulative. Firstly, the purpose of security measures is to remove "a states" or "conditions" which can affect the repeated crime (article 78 of The Criminal Code), while the purpose of protective measures is to remove "conditions" which can affect repeated misdemeanor (article 51, §1 of The Law on Misdemeanor). It is not clear why the legislator did not stipulate with protective measures as well that they remove "a states", for this is exactly the basis for medical security measures, which should relate to medical protective measures. Secondly, the Criminal Code has formally separated drug addict treatment from alcohol addict treatment, under the excuse that these are two different types of addiction, while the Law on Misdemeanor stipulated a single protective measure for both these categories of addicts. One can ask why the legislator stipulated two different concepts for similar measures? In the end, with protective measure of mandatory psychiatric treatment the legislator did not stipulate a separate procedure of requirement, what was the case with psychiatric security measures in the Criminal Procedure Code, which regulates the procedure of their provision in detail. Although the Law on Misdemeanor in its processual provisions leads to an adequate application of the Criminal Procedure Code, stipulations of the Code which refer to the procedure of introducing psychiatric security measures can hardly be applied on the procedure of introduction of protective measure of mandatory psychiatric treatment. This comes from the fact that the Criminal Procedure Code stipulated special processual rules referring to psychiatric security measures (the so-called special criminal procedure), which largely differ from general criminal procedure. These differences in procedure apparently were not been considered when the protective measures of mandatory psychiatric treatment were passed.