Full text of the paper:
Proceedings of the Faculty of Law, Novi Sad
2024, vol. LVIII, no. 3, p. 755-783
working language: Serbian
Review paper
udk:343.34:796 351.752.22
doi:10.5937/zrpfns58-53514
Author:
Đorđe Marjanović
Institute of Comparative Law in Belgrade
djordje2611@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5238-7292
Summary:
The Serbian legislator has, in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, prescribed the act of violent behavior at sports events or other public gatherings in the group of criminal offenses against public order and peace. The subject of the research is this act, which the author analyzes in order to clarify all the observed dilemmas in the doctrine and domestic judicial practice. In the first part of the paper, the author indicates that there has been a disagreement between the criminal law doctrine and judicial practice regarding the issue of the place of commission of the act, as well as the possibility that athletes and other mandatory participants in a sports event are its perpetrators. The author analyzes the apparent forms of the act, as well as the dilemmas in their interpretation, by presenting a large number of unpublished court verdicts issued in the past ten years in which the defendants were athletes. In the second part of the paper, the author points out the challenge that law enforcement agencies face when distinguishing between the criminal offense of violent behavior at a sports event and the misdemeanors provided for in the Law on the Prevention of Violence and Misconduct at Sports Events. The author points out that the distinction is especially important if the perpetrators of the offense are professional athletes, sports experts and experts in the field of sports, and in terms of possible labor law consequences if a criminal offense is committed and not a misdemeanor. In the third part of the paper, the author analyzes the position of the article of the Criminal Code that incriminates violent behavior at sports events or other public gatherings, and that obliges courts to impose a security measure of banning the perpetrators of this offense at sports events from attending sports events. This section analyzes the issues of justification for the mandatory imposition of a measure, as well as the validity of the solution to impose the measure on all persons. The author concludes that the perpetrators of the criminal offense of violent behavior at sports events or other public gatherings can be athletes, that the legislator should make an effort to specify certain terms from the legal description of the offense, such as the term “sports event”, or to distinguish between the acts of committing a criminal offense and misdemeanors that can be committed through violent behavior at a sports event, and that it is necessary to make the imposition of a security measure of a ban on attending sports events optional for all persons.
Keywords:
criminal act, violent behavior, sport, sporting events, lex sportiva.