39
extended with several new minor penalties as follows: for obtaining a permit, license, concession,
authorization or other rights established by a special law; participation in public tender procedures, awarding
contracts and agreements for public-private partnership; establishment of new legal entities; using subsidies
and other favourable loans; and revocation of permit, license, concession, authorization or other rights
established by a certain law.
110
For effective implementation of these minor penalties, the establishment of a
system of records and their availability to other organs is crucial. Therefore the novelty is introduced (article
96 d) for recording the penalties in the Central Registry of the Republic of Macedonia and deleting the
restrictions ex officio after the expiry of the time from when they were stipulated. New acts are also
estimated for: sentencing (article 96 f) determining the fine (article 96); imposing a lenient fine (article 96 i);
boundaries of imposing lenient fine (article 96 j); execution of the fine (article 96 s); conditional delay of the
execution of the fine (article 96 l); confiscation of property and seizure of items (articles 96 k) and special
acts for obsolescence of the criminal prosecution and obsolescence of the execution of the sentence (article
96 i). In the system of sanctions are introduced three important novelties.
111
Confiscation
regime is a separate
criminal - legal measure has been amended, with inclusion of acts for confiscation of indirect proceeds and
extended confiscation. The new offence "confiscation of indirect proceeds" (article 97 a) contains the
definition of indirect economic benefit. The act for confiscation has been amended (article 98) by defining
the term proceeds and terms of confiscation of family members or third parties. The most significant
development is the introduction of extended confiscation (article 98-a). In the general section the acts for
legal and judicial rehabilitation are modified (articles 104 and 105) and criminal records (article 106) in
order to comply with the decisions of the juvenile law and sanctions for legal entities. In the acts of legal
expressions definitions are entered or changed for: official, foreign official, money, credit cards, proceeds of
a crime, many people, family, estate and items. More changes have been made to the specific section, which
can be dispersed in several groups: legislative and technical changes (the acts on criminal liability of legal
entities have been restated in most deeds, which now includes deeds from all views of the respective act, not
only from first paragraph); changes that in some incrimination provide criminal liability of legal entity;
changes which intervene in the penalties prescribed for the individual works as a rule in the direction of
increasing the punishment. More permanent changes have been made of the existing incriminations and new
deeds are provided, which in repressive zone include new forms of organized crime, electoral crime,
computer crime, child pornography and crime of abuse of power.
112
The need for amendments to the Criminal Code in April 2011 is a result of the need to comply with
the provisions of the Code with international conventions and standards in this area.
113
The amendments to
the Criminal Code in 2011 strengthened the criminal law protection in protecting children from sexual abuse
and had implemented the recommendations of GRECO report concerning incrimination in the area of
corruption, as well as amendments to the acts whose application so far has shown some weaknesses in
practice. During 2011 few changes have been made. In April changes were made regarding the crime
"reckless operations in the service”, followed by changes that introduce new incrimination "abuse of the visa
regime with the member states of the European Union and the Schengen agreement" and recent changes
regarding the special registry for people convicted by a final judgment of crimes against sexual freedom and
sexual morality and crime under Article 418 - d of the Criminal Code. The process of dynamic socio-
economic processes is characteristic in the Republic of Macedonia recently. The emergence of these
tendencies, impose the need of appropriate criminal law mechanisms that derive from these processes.
Therefore, the need for stipulating new crimes, redefinition of already existing crimes and strengthening of
penal policy. The purpose of the 2012 amendments to the criminal law, are standardized by certain situations
that have presented a legal gap and there was possibility of some abuses in practice. This primarily refers to
the crime "theft"; then stealing collected and distributed drinking water and other items in general use; theft
of electricity, heat or natural gas; usurpation of agricultural land into private property; issuing irredeemable
110
For more on Property sanctions and measures in criminal law, see Tatijana Ashtalkoska, Property Sanctions and Measures in
Criminal Law dis. University Ss. Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Law Justinianus Primus, Skopje, 2010
111
The first refers to the minor ban on performing a profession, activity or duty (article 38 b). The second change concerns the
provision of general rules for sentencing (the offense against persons or group of persons because of his or their national and social
origin, political and religious beliefs, property and social status, gender, race, skin colour- aggravating circumstances) With the third
amendment a regulation for supervision (article 56) has been added, by adding to the list of responsibilities which can be determined
to the defendant.
112
For the innovation of computer crime see: Nicola Tupancheski Amendments to the Criminal Code are not Part of the So-Called
Reform Illusionism, Macedonian Review of Criminal Law and Criminology, year 11, no.3 (2004): 141-147
113
More about the needs to change and amend: Draft-Law Amending the Criminal Code, Skopje, 2011, proposed by the Government
of the Republic of Macedonia.