The aim of this analysis is to provide a comprehensive overview of the normative framework of the Republic of Serbia when it comes to the organization and competence of state authorities in the fight against cybercrime, criminal acts, the powers of competent institutions, as well as evidentiary actions, in order to highlight areas in which it is possible to improve the law.
The analysis also provides an overview of the practice and capacity of the Special Prosecutor's Office for high-tech crime and the High Court in Belgrade, when dealing with cases involving high-tech crime. Finally, the analysis also gives an insight into the current situation when it comes to information security in Serbia, and especially the supervision carried out by the information security inspection.
Although the Republic of Serbia, by signing and ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on cybercrime and its Additional Protocols, has achieved significant progress in harmonizing its legislation with the European one, the next steps are equally important - the harmonization of domestic regulations, as well as their implementation. While the substantive criminal law has been adapted to a considerable extent to the requirements of the aforementioned acts, the criminal procedural provisions are still a problematic area. The Criminal Procedure Code does not follow the guidelines of the Convention and the Additional Protocols, whereby its provisions often conflict with the provisions of other laws, which makes it difficult to apply them in practice and leaves room for the negligent actions of judicial authorities.
The results of this research show that there is currently no special Department for the fight against high-tech crime in the High Court in Belgrade, which directly contradicts the Law which prescribed the establishment of this department 18 years ago. Also, it remains unclear why the legislator did not prescribe the establishment of a special department of the Appellate Court as a second-instance body in these proceedings. Regardless of the motivation, it is necessary to consider the establishment of such a department in the Court of Appeals, which would achieve a higher level of expertise in court proceedings related to high-tech crime.
The analysis of judicial practice shows that judges do not attach special importance to proceedings in the field of high-tech crime, compared to other criminal proceedings. The very fact that the legislator determined that these procedures should be handled by prosecutors and judges who possess outstanding knowledge in the field of information technologies shows that these procedures are specific and should be approached with special care and expertise. Therefore, we emphasize the urgent need for the adoption of regulations, acts or some other decision that will prescribe what is meant by "special knowledge in the field of information technologies", how this knowledge is acquired, as well as how the knowledge of public prosecutors and judges is evaluated. Bearing in mind that the field of information technology is rapidly developing, as well as that the perpetrators of crimes from this corpus are often at least one step ahead when it comes to technical knowledge and capabilities, it is necessary that the representatives of the judicial authorities who act in these cases constantly improve and follow new international trends in this area.
Along with the fight against cybercrime, it is necessary to strengthen information security standards. At the time of publication of this analysis, the Department for Information Security and Electronic Business in the Information Society Sector managed by the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications has only two inspectors responsible for the entire territory of the Republic of Serbia (in contrast to the previous year, when it had one inspector). Although the capacities and scope of this department are questionable, an additional problem is the very poor practice of reporting security incidents, and the question is to what extent the public is generally aware of the real situation in this area. In anticipation of the adoption of the new Law on Information Security, it is important to insist on the transparent behavior of all authorities dealing with this area, especially in the sense of informing the public about incidents that have occurred, respecting existing legislative solutions, adequately exercising supervision over the implementation of this law, as well as responding to injuries, determining responsibility and implementing the prescribed penal policy.
The authors of the publication are Dr. Milana Pisarić, Mihailo Pavlović, Milan Stefanović and Milica Tošić, and the publisher are Partners Serbia.
The publication is available at the link >>