Drafting of the Act on legal consequences of conviction, on criminal record and rehabilitation

Workgroup members are judges, scholars from the Faculty of Law of the University of Zagreb, representatives of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children, representatives of Croatian Personal Dana Protection Agency and Ministry of Justice officers. Head of the workgroup is Marin Mrčela, judge at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia.

The Act is going to be drafted because this matter is currently underregulated (there are some general provisions of the Criminal Act in force and executive regulation – Ordinance on criminal record of the Ministry of Justice) and particularly because of implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse that the Republic of Croatia ratified in 2011 and in order to regulate rules on international data exchange from criminal records.

Thus the Act will regulate legal consequences of conviction, organisation, management, availability, presentment and deleting data from criminal record and international data exchange from criminal records and rehabilitation. It is necessary to point out that with this Act the Republic of Croatia demonstrates its strong belief that sexual abuse, especially child pornography and prostitution and every other child sexual abuse, including crimes committed outside the territory of the RoC are extremely harmful for health and psychosocial child development and thus the legislation will ensure that the conditions for vacancies whose performance implies everyday contacts with children (education, healthcare, social protection, culture and free time activities) guarantee that candidates were not convicted for sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of children.

Ministry of Justice will ensure transparency of the activities of the workgroup; it will publish the draft proposal of the Act on the Ministry website and will be open for professional and public remarks and suggestions.