Where does the fine money go?

The money that was paid for the minor offenses as a settlement with the Prosecutor’s Office instead of going to trial was forwarded, during the last 12 years, to the humanitarian organizations which prosecutor saw fit. The criteria for organization selection never existed, nor the control where it was spent. With the recent changes to the Law, the decision on who will get the donations after the public competition, was passed to the Government of Serbia.

7. april 2016.

Since 2002, by the Law of Criminal Procedure, it was predicted the public prosecutor may postpone a prosecution and order the accused for minor criminal acts to pay up a certain amount of money to the charity.

Insajder.net’s research about the spending of the mentioned money has shown that until the change of the Law in 2014 there were no means to control where the money ends up.

On their own, the prosecutors were, without any limits, on the clear and unique criteria, deciding on which humanitarian organization will get the funds. Besides, no one was checking if those organizations and institutions were duly spending the money.

The fact that prosecutors had been allowed too much authority when handling the money collected in this manner, was confirmed to us in the official note of the Ministry of Justice.

Until the last changes of the Law of Criminal Procedure, too much authority was given to prosecutors to dispose the collected money under this article of the Law. The prosecutor was the one who picks the humanitarian organization and gives the bank account number where the accused would make a payment.

During the last 10 years, regulations of the Law of Criminal Procedure, which control this type of sanctions and the Principle of opportunity, have sustained many changes and amendments.

Until 2009, the possibility of postponing the prosecution applied to those accused for the offenses where the sentence was 3 years of prison. After the changes of the Law in September 2009, it was decided that the same right can be applied to those accused who committed a crime where the sentence was up to 5 years of prison.

Radovan Lazic, president of the Board of Serbian Association of Public Prosecutors, has stated for Insajder.net that since then the fining, i.e. postponing the prosecution, was enforced on a massive scale.

“There is an increased number of the criminal acts, where the condition can be enforced, and, therefore, the amount of the financial obligation too. In my experience, the money was usually forwarded to the accounts of kindergartens, schools, hospitals, Red Cross. The will of the accused was usually taken into consideration, but the prosecutors had every right to choose, on their own, the institution, and just deliver the decision with the account number.”

With the last changes of the Law of Criminal Procedure from 2014, instead of independent decisions of the Prosecutor’s Offices on how to spend the money from the settlements with the accused, it is proposed that those funds should be directed to the special account of the Government of Serbia, and to forward them to humanitarian organizations only after the Ministry of Justice conducts the public contest. The first contest for allocation of the funds obtained in this manner is in progress, and it will be decided by the Government on who gets the money – individuals, public institutions or foundations.

According to the information of the Ministry of Justice, by the Principle of opportunity, since October 2014 until today, more than 350 million dinars, i.e. about 3 million Euros, has been collected.

What is the total amount obtained in this manner before the opening of the special account, and more importantly, how was it spent, is a subject that will be investigated by Insajder.net.