Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.54070/hljk.32.2.4
THE SUBSIDIARY PROSECUTOR IN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CROATIAN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
Ante Novokmet
orcid.org/0000-0001-8833-9751
; Sveučilište J.J.Strosssmayer Pravni fakultet Osijek
*
Dražen Tripalo
orcid.org/0009-0007-0949-8932
; Vrhovni sud Republike Hrvatske, Hrvatska
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to highlight the legal and practical unsustainability of the
existing normative framework under which the costs of criminal proceedings are imposed
on the subsidiary prosecutor (the injured party acting as prosecutor) if the proceedings end
with a judgment acquitting the defendant, a judgment dismissing the charges, or a decision
to discontinue the proceedings. In this regard, the paper first explains the legal nature of the
right to subsidiary prosecution by referring to the public interest in prosecuting and punishing
offenders as a key premise justifying the existence of this institute in Croatian criminal
procedural law. It then analyses the legal standards developed within the law of the Council
of Europe and the European Union, which establish the state’s positive obligation to formally
and materially guarantee the victim’s right to review a decision to discontinue criminal
prosecution. In the final part, the paper critically examines the current normative framework,
judicial practice, and the case law of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia, concluding that it is necessary to extend the essence of the right to subsidiary prosecution to those provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act that undermine the fundamental principles of
this institute in Croatian criminal procedural law.
Keywords
victim, injured party as prosecutor, subsidiary prosecution, costs of criminal proceedings
Hrčak ID:
342377
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2025.
Visits: 604 *