With the aim of relieving the misdemeanor authorities and regardful of the right to trial within a reasonable time, the legislator gradually strengthened the importance of the institute of de minimis offence. Today, the latter is an effective tool in the hands of the misdemeanor authorities and the court, which enables faster handling of those misdemeanors that do not need to be given more attention due to their small significance and non-danger. The competent authorities may therefore, in cases where they consider that the conditions for treating the offence as bagatelle are met, ignore the offence, issue a warning or give an admonition. In the master's thesis I present how the regulation of dealing with trivial offences in Slovenian law has developed, under what conditions these institutes may be used, who is given decision-making power and what dilemmas arise in the discretion of decision-making bodies. The latter must always strive to strike a balance between the right to equal treatment of offenders of comparable offences and the milder treatment of offenders for whom such a measure is sufficient and thus a higher level of safety culture can be achieved. I also highlight the title in the light of current events, when we are witnessing inflation of norms due the adoption of many epidemiological measures, checking the extent to which coronavirus-related offences have been identified as trivial.
|
