08 March 2019 - Criminal Code of Montenegro has been harmonized with the European Union’s Law on Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. Twenty criminal offences, out of 32 that have been entailed, have already been harmonized, reads the Analysis of the harmonization of norms contained in the European Arrest Warrant.
Through the negotiating chapter 24 in the Program of the accession of Montenegro to the EU 2019/2020, the Ministry of Justice planned the amendments to the Criminal Code, with the aim of harmonizing the norms with the elements of criminal offences in the European Arrest Warrant that haven’t already been harmonized in the domain of the punishment determined for these offences.
In order to harmonize these norms, term of imprisonment for 12 criminal offences needs to be increased. As the aforementioned analysis points out, adoption of this law is one of the prerequisites for the accession of Montenegro to the EU, and according with the provisions of the Law, it will be applied from the day of Montenegro's accession to the Union onwards.
Thus, a member of the criminal organization who exposes a criminal organization or contributes to its exposure will be punished by a 3-year imprisonment, instead of one year imprisonment or even acquittal.
In addition, a minimum of three-year long imprisonment will be imposed on the perpetrators of the criminal offence of sexual misconduct. Up until now, a fine of up to two-year imprisonment has been prescribed for such offences.
Requirement for determining the punishment for the criminal offences of unlawful command influence and cover-up hasn’t been met yet. The imprisonment for such offences should be three years or more.
As far as the criminal offence of fraud is concerned, the perpetrator who commits the offence only with the aim of inflicting damage to another person will be sentenced to three-year long imprisonment or longer, instead of a fine or six-month long imprisonment.
Person who took counterfeit money and used it as real money, and put it into circulation while knowing that the money is fake, or a person who knows that such money has been put into circulation and fails to report it, will be punished with a prison sentence of minimum three years.
In accordance with the demands of the European Arrest Warrant, more severe prison sentences should be passed for the criminal offences of damaging computer data and programs, design and transmission of computer viruses, computer frauds and abuse of devices and programs. There will be a prison sentence of minimum three years for each of these offences.
It is also necessary to impose heavier prison sentences for criminal offence such as: environment pollution, waste environment pollution, failing to take measures for the protection of environment, inflicting damage to the structures and devices for the protection of the environment, abuse of GMOs, destruction of plants, killing and torturing animals and their habitat and for destruction and damage of protected natural goods.
Punishment will be imposed more severely on those who try to cross the Montenegrin border without permission, who try to cross the border armed or with the use of violence. In addition, unlawful arrest and unauthorized use of a patent or a design of an individual will be punished more severely – minimum prison sentence will last three years.
Source: Dnevne novine
