Vanda Božić

HISTORICAL - LEGAL DEVELOPMENT OF CRIMINAL OFFENSES AGAINST LIFE AND BODY IN THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA UNTIL THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY

Considering the historical development of criminal-legal protection of the most important human values, we investigated which acts against life and body have been incriminated in Serbia throughout history. The historical path from the earliest period, when the Talion principle was applied through the remnants of customary law, until the 20th century, shows the development of criminal law protection of life and body in a more modern direction, with a solid number of incriminations. In the following period, Serbia has already experienced two legal systems according to different social systems, and in such circumstances it is difficult to leave one completely and accept the other. In addition to development and legal progress, one of the factors that conditioned the prescribing of a significantly higher number of crimes against life and body in relation to the historical number of incriminations, is certainly the transit period that has left its mark in all social segments. That the overabundance of crimes against life and body leads to inefficiency of judicial instances and practical incompetence of judicial bodies is shown as a result in the statistical part of the research. Namely, there is a big difference between reported and convicted perpetrators of crimes against life and body. There is also a trend of mild penal policy to the extent that the most common sentences were imprisonment from 6 to 12 months, followed by 3 to 6 months. The conclusion is that in no case is the purpose of punishment, special and general prevention achieved. A smaller but more purposeful number of this type of incrimination would certainly give positive effects.