Emerging Crimes - Organized Crime and Corruption

Countering Organized Crime and Corruption in Serbia

The Project

Co-partners:
United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute	University of Florence, Faculty of Law www.giuris.unifi.it
Co-partners:
Institute of Comparative Law of Belgrade www.icl.org.yu	Judicial Training Center, Serbia www.pcsrbija.org.yu

Donor:

The project has been generously funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the framework of the law 84/2001.

Purpose:

The project aims at strengthening the tools to be used to counteract organized crime and corruption in Serbia within the rule of law. The project has been designed in order to be complementary to other cooperation programmes implemented in the Balkans, at risk of resulting inefficient due to organized crime and corruption.

Activities:

Legal reform proposal

Increasing the efficiency of the Serbian legislation against organized crime and corruption trough judicial reform and harmonization of the national legislation to the European and International one. A Task Force of Serbian experts has: Phase 1: carried out an in-depth analysis of the national legislation and case law on organized crime and corruption, identified the weak points and operational difficulties. Phase 2: with the support of Italian legal experts, drafted a legal reform proposal and guidelines to fight against organized crime. A paper containing the results of the two phases will be available on-line at the beginning of 2008 in two languages (English and Serbian).

Training courses

Targeted to judges and prosecutors in order to strengthen their capacities in the fight against organized crime and corruption. The training courses have been focused on the relevant international legislation as well as on the best practices positively experienced in other countries, with particular reference to the Italian experience.

30 participants attended the training courses in Belgrade (1st group, 27-31 August 2007; 2nd group, 3-7 September 2007).
The training focused on the analysis of the UN and European legal framework, as well as the Italian legislation against organized crime as a model for a comparative approach to the Serbian legal system on the following issues: organized crime; corruption; money laundering; smuggling of narcotics; global challenges and global responses to organized crime.

Please also refer to the Bibliography on Organized Crime and Corruption.

Project Publication

Belgrade, 12 February 2008 – The results of the United Nations Interregional Crime Research Institute (UNICRI) coordinated project “Countering organised crime and corruption through the strengthening of the rule of law in Serbia” have been presented today at the press conference with delegates from the institutions involved in the programme.

The project, developed in the last twelve months thanks to funding from the Italian Government, had the objective of strengthening instruments to combat organized crime and corruption in Serbia in the framework of international action in support of the rule of law. A task force has been created with the aim of formulating reform proposals of the Serbian legislation with respect to anti-organised crime and anti-corruption.

It should be underlined that the proposals have been formulated using inputs from national contributions: the task force was composed of Serbian experts and national authorities with the involvement of the national Prosecutor Office, the Special Prosecutor Office specialised in countering organised crime and the Ministry of Justice.

The Law Faculty of the University of Florence developed the scientific component of the project, and the Italian Anti-mafia bureau, with its decades of experience in countering organized crime, carried out an important exchange of expertise with the Serbian counterpart.

According to the UNICRI Director, Mr. Sandro Calvani, “The project’s results demonstrate once more the importance of international cooperation: we have to build stronger and more dynamic partnerships than the ones built up by organised crime in every country of the world”.

Ideally, the proposals will now be passed into the hands of the Serbian government; who could draw upon them in adopting new reforms.

The results of the project can be found in the publication “Countering organised crime in Serbia – from actual legislation to a broader reform”, presented during the conference.

A representative of the Italian Embassy in Serbia, the Dean of the Law School of the University of Florence Michele Papa, Serbian Chief Prosecutor and Special Prosecutor for combating organised crime Slobodan Radovanovic and Milijko Radisavljevic, vice Minister of Justice Snežana Malovic, Professor Momcilo Grubac from the Faculty of Law, Belgrade, and the Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Anti-mafia Bureau Giovanni Melillo were also present at the meeting.