Criminal liability of legal persons in the contemporary criminal law

Even though the contemporary criminal law recognizes the system of subjective (individual) criminal liability for a perpetrated criminal act many relevant international law acts and criminal legislations (particularly those enacted in the last period) still envisage some aberration, i.e. exclusions. Accordingly, a new form of criminal liability has been introduced into criminal law: the objective liability or liability on the grounds of causation. One of the forms of objective liability is the criminal liability of legal persons, which has been disputed and challenged for a long time. Apparently, legal persons may not appear as perpetrators of all types of criminal offences; therefore, they are not subject to the legal provisions on the mental capacity and culpability (which are the basic elements of subjective criminal liability), nor are they subject to all kinds of criminal sanctions generally recognized in criminal legislation. By recognizing the criminal liability of legal persons for the perpetrated criminal acts, a number of counties have installed the system of objective criminal liability into their new or innovated criminal legislations, in conjunction with the predominant system of subjective liability of natural persons. As legal persons certainly cannot be held individually liable for a criminal offence there are exemptions (pertaining particularly to the state and the bodies of authority); this, however, does not absolve the individuals in positions of authority of their criminal liability for causing the effect of a criminal act. Considering the specific character of legal and business capacity of legal persons in law, the criminal law has envisaged specific grounds for establishing their criminal liability which are quite different from the liability of natural person (perceived as a conscious, free, and thinking human being, whose conduct - commission or omission to act - produces the effect of a criminal act. These specific characteristics of criminal liability of legal persons are primarily reflected in the attempt of a criminal offence, the prolonged criminal offence, or accomplice ship. Certainly, the most specific characteristics of the position of legal persons in criminal law pertain to the use of criminal sanctions. It is for this reason that contemporary criminal legislations have prescribed special kinds of criminal sanctions (such as: penalty, security measures, and probation, as well as the measure of depriving the offender of the property benefit gained by the commission of the criminal offence), including the manner, proceedings and conditions for awarding these sanctions. Finally, these legal solutions may serve as a good example for the legislator in the Republic of Serbia in the forthcoming reform of the entire penal legislation in the direction of the implementation of the international law standards in the field of criminal liability of legal persons. In this paper, the authors deal with the specific application of some general institutes of criminal law in cases when the perpetrator of the criminal offence is a legal person.