The Minister of Justice, Etilda Gjonaj announced yesterday that work has begun to amend the Criminal Code.
In a communication with journalists together with the Director of Magistrates, Arben Rakipi, Gjonaj showed that the main changes in the Criminal Code will be related to the confiscation of business property, and the victim during the criminal process.
The government’s proposal is that the confiscation of business property be mandatory in every case and that the court should not have the right to decide on a case-by-case basis.
“Given the cases when crime is hit in the center, we have made mandatory, additional penalties related to the confiscation or closure of businesses that put activity in the service of crime. We thought of forced confiscation, not to leave it to the courts to decide.”
The current Criminal Code provides that in cases of conviction of a person, the court may impose in addition to the main sentence (imprisonment or fine) an additional sentence. This is left to the judge to decide.
It is still unclear whether there will be criteria for sentencing with confiscation of property or it will be given in each case and for each criminal offense.
