“There is not one constitutional obstacle to including a sentence to life imprisonment into our penal legislation. First, however, a certain number of questions needs to be addressed”, Justice Minister Nela Kuburović stated at the round table organised by the Ministry of Justice to initiate a discussion about the possibility of introducing life imprisonment into the penal-legal system of the Republic of Serbia.

Kuburović listed some of those questions: whether the existing situation was adequate or not, what the replacement of the existing sentence of 30-40 years of imprisonment with life imprisonment would mean for the Serbian penal system, how complicated the introduction of life imprisonment from a normative perspective would be, which statutes would need to be amended, how soon all the comprehensive changes could be effected and how long it would take to prepare the judicial system and the penal sanctions enforcement system for the introduction of this punishment. She said that, during 2015 and 2016, the Ministry of Justice Working Group had been working on the amendments to the Criminal Code, raising the issue of whether the existing 30-40 years of imprisonment sentence would be an appropriate punishment for the most severe crimes or whether it best be replaced with life imprisonment; an issue on which the community of experts had had divided opinions.

“The Jurić Foundation deemed that the sentence of 30 to 40 years of imprisonment was not adequate for the most heinous crimes. The number of citizens who supported the idea of replacement was over 150,000. We can confidently say that the Foundation had not only raised the question of amendments to the Criminal Code, but also one which was a referendum-type question: are you in favour of the introduction of a life imprisonment into the prison system in the Republic of Serbia?“, Kuburović stated.

She explained that the question was a complex one for the Ministry of Justice because it required considerations of the criminal policy, ethics, comparative law expertise and an overall safeguarding of the theoretical validity of the Criminal Code. Finally, the Minister invited the community of experts to state their views on the introduction of a life imprisonment sentence, stating that the Ministry of Justice was prepared to submit a proposal to the National Assembly in the shortest time-frame.

Free downloading of the video material is available from the following website: www.infobiro.tv.