Public prosecutor's decision not to conduct criminal prosecution and to abandon criminal prosecution: Introduction of the ruling of abandoning criminal prosecution

Abstract

In preliminary proceedings, for which for the purposes of this paper we mean part of the procedure in which authority conducting proceedings is public prosecutor, prosecutor's offices in Serbia have been making decisions for ten years that according to the CPC they can not make. First, decisions of dismissal of criminal complaint are made when the prosecutor, after undertaking criminal prosecution in preliminary proceedings for criminal offences for which a fine or a term of imprisonment of up to eight years shall be prescribed as the principal penalty, determines that there is not a sufficient degree of probability that the defendant committed the crime. Second mistake is the decision of dismissal of criminal complaint in a situation when the criminal proceedings began by the issuance of a ruling ordering detention before submitting a motion to indict in summary proceedings. The third mistake is issuing an order discontinuing the investigation after the conclusion of the investigation. In the first and third case, a decision to abandon criminal prosecution should be made and in the second case, the public prosecutor should submit a statement of abandoning criminal prosecution to the judge for the preliminary proceedings after which that judge will issue a ruling discontinuing criminal proceedings.

Keywords

• abandoning criminal prosecution
• dismissal of criminal complaint
• abandoning criminal charges
• initiating criminal prosecution.