‘Today, Minister of Justice Nela Kuburović formed a working group tasked to amend the Criminal Code in consideration of the Tijana Jurić Foundation’s initiative to introduce a sentence of life imprisonment’, the Ministry of Justice officials reported to Tanjug.

The Jurić Foundation advocates the inclusion of life imprisonment for the most serious crimes and offences against sexual freedom resulting in the death of a child, minors, expectant mothers and powerless persons, as a new form of criminal sanction in our legal system.

‘In addition to this initiative, the working group will also be considering one started by Minister of Interior Nebojša Stefanović: the possibility of having harsher penalties for repeated offenders, i.e. perpetrators of violent crimes. Another subject for discussion will be the initiative of the Committee on Countering Drug Abuse in Schools’, the Ministry of Justice officials have reportedly stated. They further explained that the working group was conducting a systematic harmonisation of the penalty policy (the length and the types of penalty) with the societal needs.

The introduction of new and any amendments to existing criminal offences will be discussed in the course of this year.