The monthly “Business and Finance” reported the assessment of legal experts, which states that the criminal law protection of the environment in Serbia is generally good, if it were to be implemented.

As stated, when the legislator adopted the new Criminal Code in 2006, he set aside a special part declaring the environment a legal good, worthy of protection.

Assistant professor of criminal law at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, Ivana Marković, clarified that the domestic criminal legislation does not directly prohibit any behavior that endangers the environment, but that water, air and soil pollution is tolerated up to a certain limit. “This is the case at the level of the whole of Europe, and the similarity is also in the fact that the regulations related to environmental protection are connected with a multitude of other regulations, mainly in the field of administrative law”, stated Marković and added that, when a regulation is found that corresponds to a specific case, another problem becomes apparent. “In order to assess whether something is or is not water, air or soil pollution, you must also have technical knowledge in the specific field. Therefore, expertise is necessary.”

As she specified, of the 18 prescribed criminal acts in the field of the environment, 90 percent of the verdicts refer to forest theft, or to illegal hunting and fishing. “It is essentially a property crime, so it is tried for what is directly visible and tangible, while the elements of criminal acts in other environmental crimes are very abstract for state authorities,” Marković believes.

Vanja Bajović, professor of criminal procedural law at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, pointed out that legal entities bear the greatest responsibility in environmental crimes.

“It is debatable that only financial damage is considered in criminal proceedings. However, ecological damage cannot be measured only by money,” Bajović said, as reported by the monthly magazine “Biznis i finansije”.