THE CRIMINAL LAW FRAMEWORK FOR COMBATING DOPING IN SPORTS IN SERBIA

Abstract

This paper deals with the aspects of criminal law as regards the suppression of doping in sports in the law of the Republic of Serbia. The Law on the Prevention of Doping in Sports prescribes two criminal offences, namely Facilitating the Use of Doping Substances and the Unauthorized Production and Circulation of Doping Substances. These are criminal acts that are prescribed by the so-called secondary criminal legislation of the Republic of Serbia. The analysis of these criminal offences is afforded the central place in this paper. At the same time, for the sake of systematicity, numerous common features of these criminal acts were separated and analysed, such as protective object, object of action (doping agent), consequence of the criminal act, guilt, special intention, etc., and then their other features were separately considered. It is noticeable that the criminal offenses from the Law on the Prevention of Doping in Sports have corresponding regulatory shortcomings, above all they do not include certain important aspects related to the suppression of doping in sports, so certain proposals de lege ferenda were made based on the criminal offenses from the Criminal Code. The paper also gives a cursory review of the most important international documents in this area, i.e. the two most important documents ratified by the Republic of Serbia, namely the International Convention against Doping in Sport and the European Convention against Doping in Sport, bearing in mind that these acts were the basis for adoption of a special anti-doping law in our country. Additionally, the paper clarifies what is considered doping in sports according to the provisions of the positive law of Serbia.