Special circumstance for determining a punishment for criminal offences committed out of hatred in criminal legislation of the Republic of Serbia

The topic of the paper is to analyse the content, reasons and needs for the introduction of a new provision of Article 54a of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, which stipulates the obligation to take into account as an aggravating circumstance when determining the sentence, the fact that a criminal offence was committed out of hatred due to the victim's actual or presumed affiliation with a group characterised by one of the common personal characteristics prescribed in this article, as well as to analyse its repressive and preventive effects. The paper also emphasises the application of the aforementioned provision since 2012, when the article was introduced into the criminal legislation of the Republic of Serbia. At that time, hate crime was codified in domestic criminal legislation for the first time. The essence of the aforementioned provision is to provide additional criminal protection to certain groups (or individuals belonging to them, e.g. national minorities) from hatred-motivated attacks. An explicit obligation to investigate the motive of hatred and its evaluation when determining the sentence is established. In this manner, the legislator has taken a significant step in the incrimination of hate crimes and hate speech in general. The paper analyses whether, during the period of its existence, this provision has been applied in theory and in court practice, particularly in which way, whether the introduction of this provision has proven justified, what difficulties in its application have been identified and how this institute could be applied even better in the future.