The meeting, attended by the representatives of the parliaments of Turkey, Romania, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Croatia, was chaired by Barisa Colak, Deputy Speaker of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and General Committee Chair.

The participants noted that instating unified trial procedures into the criminal procedure takes the burden off the judiciary and enables its institutions to focus their efforts on more complicated criminal offenses such as organized crime and corruption which plague all of the SEE countries. It also reduces the number of inmates and with it expenses and also ensures a more humane treatment.

Darko Laketic said that the positive effect of a wider application of alternative sanctions is manifold and it promotes efficiency. The experience of countries which have been using alternative sanctions for years clearly indicates that alternative sanctions lead to a reduction in crime especially among the youth i.e. first-time offenders and contributes to a reduction in recidivism. Alternative sanctions allow the system to follow and through different methods correct the offender’s functioning without excluding them from their social environment and allowing them to in many cases keep their employment with as little disruption as possible to their familial status. Laketic said that alternative sanctions allow for the implementation of penalties suited to both the crime and the criminal, lead to an individualization of the penalty and help develop a more responsible attitude among the guilty parties to the consequences of their actions and the society in general. The local community also plays an integral part in the implementation of alternative sanctions, the offenders charged with petty crimes are efficiently and publically reintegrated into society. Laketic said that the necessary preparations for the introduction of alternative sanctions into Serbian judiciary had started in 2006. The appropriate legislation was amended as was the document on the systematisation of jobs in the Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions. Considerable progress has been made since then normatively and organizationally speaking and a lot of effort was put into raising public awareness which is all essential for building trust. The Serbian Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions maintains good contacts with its counterparts in the region, especially in Montenegro, Macedonia, Republic of Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since these countries all share similar legislative frameworks, the Administration was happy to cooperate and share its experiences with their institutions, said Laketic.

At the end of the meeting the participants adopted a Resolution and Report to be presented at the SEECP PA Plenary Session in Ljubljana 13 – 14 April, to be attended by the heads of parliament of the SEECP participant states. When the documents were being passed the participants of the meeting accepted all the amendments submitted by the National Assembly’s standing delegation. The meeting was found to be an excellent opportunity to review the region’s positive experiences and help the SEE countries’ judiciary systems to efficiently tackle crimes that undermine social values.