Role of Police in Croatian Criminal Procedure

Abstract

The Criminal Procedure Law of Republic of Croatia from 1997 regulates Croatian criminal procedure as mixed or accusatorial-inquisition procedure with judicial investigation i.e. as an investigation conducted by the investigating judge at the request of the State Attorney. In this kind of criminal procedure, police officers have limited role in investigation itself, so their role is mainly linked to the preinvestigative proceeding, where they act ex officio or upon the request of State Attorney and exceptionally they participate in investigation procedure in cases when investigating judge entrusts them with execution of certain investigation action. In order to fulfill their duties, police officers of Republic Croatia have authority to undertake a general and special inquires of criminal offences, and under legally determined conditions they can conduct certain urgent investigative actions. However, Republic of Croatia adopted a new Criminal Procedure Law, which formally came into force on the 01 January 2009 and most of its provisions that completely reform the criminal proceedings are not yet implemented. Key news brought by the new Law regard the preliminary proceedings where it abolishes judicial investigation and introduces the prosecutor’s investigation but it also anticipates the active role of police officers in investigation. In this way, police officers will become the most important secondary subjects of criminal procedure with great range of powers and responsibilities and with irreplaceable role in preliminary proceedings that should ultimately lead into more efficient criminal procedures.