The Place of the Criminal Justice for Children in the Legal System of Republic of Macedonia from Its Independence Until Today

Abstract

In this paper the author will analyze the legal treatment of juvenile delinquency in Republic of Macedonia, in historical aspect of the development of its legislation. In this way it will be presented the place of the criminal law for juveniles in the criminal legal system of the country and its development during today. The study will be focused on the innovation of legal protection of delinquent children, especially it will be analyzed the sanctioning of juvenile perpetrators and their special treatment from the majors in Republic of Macedonia. It will be a chronological comparison reflect of the juvenile sanctioning based on some of laws in Macedonia such as: Criminal Code of Former Yugoslavia, Criminal Code of Republic of Macedonia (1996), Law on Juvenile Justice (2007) and Law on Child protection (2013). The purpose of the study is to bring out the types of criminal sanctions for juveniles in Republic of Macedonia from its independence until today which, above all, are aimed on protecting the interests of the juvenile delinquents. Also the author of this paper will attach importance to the so-called “Measures of assistance and protection” provided by the Law on Child protection of Republic of Macedonia, which represent an innovation in the country's criminal law. This study is expected to draw conclusions about how it started to become independent itself the delinquency of minors as a separate branch from criminal law in the broad sense – and how much contemporary are the sanctions to minors from 1996 until today.