Lower penalties for those who plead guilty for offenses in gray zone – Statute of limitations expires for over 95% cases since 2013

By signing a plea agreement, those who break the law in the domain of gray economy will be able to have their penalties lowered, whereas the state will secure a more efficient sanctioning and misdemeanor courts will be considerably unloaded.

The new feature will initially be applied to offenses determined by the Market Inspection and the Labor Inspection, the NALED reported.

The implementation of plea agreements was proposed by the NALED, which also secured the donation support by the Dutch Fund for Regional Partnership. The two-year project will give a considerable contribution to the realization of the Agreement on cooperation between the Coordination Commission for Inspection Supervision and the Association of Judges of Misdemeanor Courts, signed on Wednesday, October 18, 2017, at the Palace of Serbia by Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Branko Ruzic and the president of the Association, Milan Marinovic.

– The intention of the Agreement on cooperation and the project for implementing plea agreements is to make offense proceedings more efficient. It is very discouraging to learn that the statute of limitations has expired for over 95% of the cases from 2013, 2014 and 2015. This is also very bad for the economy and demotivating for inspectors. We want the procedures to be as short as possible and to have a court epilogue – Ruzic stated.

The minister also emphasized the contribution of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which supported the NALED and the ministry in forming the Unit for support to the Coordination Commission and estimated that it had made a significant contribution to the improvement of the operations of the Government's institutions which manages the connections and the cooperation between the inspections.

Talking about the project for implementing the institution of the guilty plea, the consultant at the NALED and the coordinator of the Government's Expert Group for Countering Gray Economy, Dragana Ilic, pointed out that the cooperation between courts and inspections was one of the key measures of the National Program for Countering Gray Economy. She emphasized that guilty pleas had achieved considerable results in resolving traffic and customs offenses and that the key effects would be reflected in the unloading of the courts and the certainty of sanctioning, whereas inspectors would be able to dedicate themselves to their main job, controlling the business sector.

– We also need the institution of the guilty plea because, as the NALED's survey shows, there's a great mistrust in the system of sanctioning of companies operating in the gray zone. Less than a third of the subjects believe that such a company will be discovered, 14% believe that it will be sanctioned, and only 8% believe that fines will be paid. The level of mistrust is also shown by the fact that 61% of the businessmen say that they wouldn't report a disloyal competitor, and the most frequent reasons cited are that the subjects believe that discovering offenses is the state's task exclusively or that they don't believe in the effectiveness of the report – Ilic said.

Marinovic emphasized that the courts were overloaded and that the influx of new cases far exceeded the judges' monthly norm, whereas the statutes of limitations were the shortest ones in Europe and the region.

Ministarstvo državne uprave i lokalne samouprave Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo za rad, zapošljavanje, boračka i socijalna pitanja Republike Srbije

NALED Beograd

EBRD Evropska banka za obnovu i razvoj Beograd

Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self Government

Market Inspection

Labor Inspection

NALED

Fund for Regional Partnership Holland

Coordination Commission for Inspection Supervision

Association of Judges of Misdemeanor Courts

Branko Ruzic

Milan Marinovic

offense proceedings

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

EBRD

institution of the guilty plea

countering gray economy

Dragana Ilic

plea agreement

gray economy

lowering penalties

misdemeanor courts in Serbia