Review article
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.75.5.3
Femicide as a Separate Criminal Offense in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia: A Powerful Tool in Combating Violence Against Women or a Source of New Controversies?
Marissabell Škorić
orcid.org/0000-0003-0627-3651
; Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
Following introductory considerations on the meaning of the term femicide, the paper critically analyses the criminal offense of aggravated murder of a female person, which was introduced as a separate criminal offense under Article 111a by the April 2024 Amendments to the Criminal Code. It points to the potential challenges that the application of this provision may bring in practice. The paper separately considers whether, even before these amendments, femicide cases could have been subsumed under certain qualifying circumstances of aggravated murder as defined in Article 111 of the Criminal Code, and in this context, critically reviews relevant case law.
In conclusion, the paper highlights the specific social context in which the killings of women occur in our society and provides guidelines for interpreting gender-based motives, a key feature of the new criminal offense. These guidelines should also serve as a foundation for interpreting base motives, which have been part of the qualifying circumstances for aggravated murder in our criminal law system for decades, but for which there are still no reliable criteria for precise and consistent definition.
Keywords
femicide; criminal offense of aggravated murder of a female person; gender-based violence; base motives; , Criminal Code
Hrčak ID:
344577
URI
Publication date:
12.2.2026.
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