Directive 2016/343 of the European parliament and of the Council on the strengthening of certain apsects of the presumption of innosence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings

Banović Božidar (Fakultet bezbednosti Univerziteta u Beogradu), banovicb@fb.bg.ac.rs
Radić Žarko (Javno preduzeće \"Poslovni prostor Vračar\" - u likvidaciji), zarkoradic@yahoo.com

In this paper, the authors apply the dogmatic and normative methods to analyse Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and the Council of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings. At the end of the paper, the authors consider the importance of the studied Directive for the Republic of Serbia and its path to EU membership. They conclude that, primarily, the Criminal Procedure Code may be subject to harmonisation with the Directive, but that other laws (for example, laws on the media) and regulations may also be subject to harmonisation. When harmonising domestic law with the Directive, it is useful to have data on the normative and actual situation regarding its implementation in individual EU member states. For this purpose, we should gain insight into the Report of the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the Directive. Finally, the authors also point out that the manner of transposing the Directive into the domestic law of the Republic of Serbia should be in accordance with the Directive.

Keywords: the presumption of innocence, the right to be present at the trial, procedural rights, criminal proceedings, suspects, and accused persons