‘To knock the cudgel out of the enforcer’s hand’: the Serbian Parliament on the abolishment of corporal punishment

ABSTRACT

In 1873, the Serbian government proposed to abolish corporal punishment from the Criminal Code. (Since 1860, it existed in the form of beating of up to 50 strikes.) While the parliamentary committee supported this amendment, listing five arguments in favour of the abolishment, the opinions in the plenum were divided. Some MPs supported it, seeing corporal punishment as anachronistic, or underlining inequalities and abuse involved in its application. However, some thought that prison could not serve as a sufficient deterrent to potential offenders, and they feared that abolishing beating would lead to an increase in crime rates. The discussion was concluded by a long speech of Đorđe Cenić, Minister of Justice (and author of the amendment), after which the proposal was accepted with a prevailing majority. This article will analyse the MPs’ attitudes towards this form of punishment, Cenić’s influence both as a political figure and as an expert on criminal law, and the arguments given by both sides, while attempting to place the analysed case into a broader legal-political framework.

KEYWORDS:

• corporal punishment
• National Assembly
• Principality of Serbia
• Đorđe Cenić
• criminal law

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The corporal punishment of children by parents (and, in some settings, teachers) is mostly a separate subject, that shall not be elaborated upon here despite its importance, and because of its specificities.

2 See an overview in G. Geltner, Flogging Others: Corporal Punishment and Cultural Identity from Antiquity to the Present, (Amsterdam, 2014), esp. pp. 68–81.

3 Geltner uses this phrase with a twofold meaning, seeing processes of selfing and othering both in the sense of (corporal) punishment as a political act, applied by a group whose norms and values have been violated upon social others, and in the cultural sense of many societies seeing those who employ corporal punishment as backwards and uncivilised, Geltner, Flogging Others, pp. 10–11. Here I primarily refer to his first meaning, though the latter will also be of some importance later on.

4 W. S. Wiedeman, ‘Don’t Spare the Rod: A Proposed Return to Public, Corporal Punishment of Convicts’, American Journal of Criminal Law 23, (1995), pp. 651–70; G. R. Newman, Just and Painful: A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals (New York, 1995); P. Moskos, In Defense of Flogging (New York, 2011).

5 See e.g. G. G. Gaes, ‘The effects of overcrowding in prison’, Crime and justice, 6 (1985), pp. 95–146; D. P. Farrington and C.P. Nuttall, ‘Prison size, overcrowding, prison violence, and recidivism’, Journal of Criminal Justice 8, (1980), pp. 221–31.

6 A general overview in S. Baggio et al., ‘Do overcrowding and turnover cause violence in prison?’ Frontiers in psychiatry 10, (2020), p. 1015.

7 Đ. Đorđević, ‘Preopterećenost zatvorskih kapaciteta i moguća rešenja ovog problema’, Revija za kriminologiju i krivično parvo 53, (2015), pp. 75–91.

8 See, for example, D. M. Kahan, ‘What Do Alternative Sanctions Mean?’ University of Chicago Law Review 63, (1996), pp. 591–653; Z. Stojanović, ‘Opravdanost i dometi alternativnih krivičnih sankcija i alternativnih formi postupanja’, Revija za kriminologiju i krivično parvo 67, (2009), pp.3–20.

9 See T. Taranovski, Istorija srpskog prava u nemanjićkoj državi (Belgrade, 1996), pp. 377–79; S. Šarkić, A History of Serbian Mediaeval Law (Leiden – Boston, 2023), pp. 337–9. That, naturally, led to the prolonged life of collective liability, since the only way for pecuniary punishment to be severe enough to be appropriate for more serious crimes was for the amounts to be such so as to affect the property of the entire (often very numerous) family. More in N. Kršljanin, ’Kolektivna odgovornost u Dušanovom zakoniku’, Pravni život 10, (2011), pp. 413–17.

10 It is possible that beating, and perhaps a form of debt bondage, was used when a culprit was unable to pay the due fine; however, this hypothesis is based on the penalties for a single crime prescribed in a single charter, and thus cannot currently be verified. N. Kršljanin,’Kralj kao zaštitnik crkve: pravna analiza Žičkih povelja Stefana Prvovenčanog’, in Lj. Maksimović and S. Pirivatrić (eds), Kraljevstvo i arhiepiskoopija u srpskim i pomorskim zemljama Nemanjića (Belgrade, 2018), pp. 427–31.

11 Šarkić, A History, p. 336.

12 Z. Mirković, Srpska pravna istorija (Belgrade 2017), pp. 24–25.

13 This concerned crimes such as murder, rape, professional thieving and brigandry, but also corruption of judicial officials. See, for example, A. V. Solovjev, Zakonodavstvo Stefana Dušana, cara Srba i Grka (Skoplje, 1928), pp. 179–87; N. Kršljanin, ’Mere protiv korupcije u srpskom srednjovekovnom pravu’, Annals of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade – Belgrade Law Review 2, (2013), p. 242; N. Kršljanin, ’Legal regulation of sex crimes in medieval Serbia and the Mediterranean communes under its rule’, in L. L. Zanetti Domingues, L. Caravaggi, and G. M. Paoletti, (eds), Women and Violence in the Late Medieval Mediterranean, ca. 1100–1500 (London, 2022), pp. 101–20.

14 See, for example, S. Šarkić, ‘The Application of Dušan’s Code according to the Chronicle of Ioannina’in S. Trojanos (ed.), Κατϵυοδιον in memoriam Nikos Oikonomides (Athens—Komotini, 2008), pp. 161–71.

15 Z. Mirković, ‘Istorija novčane kazne u Srbiji (1804–1860. godine)’, Crimen – časopis za krivične nauke 2, (2016), pp. 129–31; see also S. Nedeljković, M. Đorđević, ‘Political Circumstances in the Pashaluk of Belgrade on the Eve of Serbian Revolution (1787-1804)’, Teme XXXIX/3, (2015), pp. 969–79.

16 The term is used here in the meaning popularised by Alan Watson. See A. Watson, Legal transplants: an approach to comparative law (Athens, Georgia 1993); N. Kršljanin, ‘Legal Transplants’, in Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2023), pp. 2085–92, available online at https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_1120-1 (last accessed 15.12.2023).

17 See a detailed overview in Z. S. Mirković, Smrtna kazna i kazna trčanja kroz šibe u Srbiji 1804–1860 (rituali pogubljenja i javnog mučenja) (Belgrade, 2013); Z. S. Mirković, Karađorđev zakonik (Belgrade, 2008), pp. 13–22, 35–6; M. Grubač, Telesna kazna u Srbiji od Prvog srpskog ustanka (1804) do njenog ukidanja (1873) (Belgrade, 2004), pp. 30–36; Z. Mirković, ’Hauptstrafen in Serbien (von 1804 bis 1860)’, in T. Simon mit G. Bender and J. Kirov (eds) Konflikt und Koexistenz: Die Rechtsordnungen Südosteuropas im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Band II: Serbien, Bosnien-Herzegowina, Albanien (Frankfurt am Main, 2017), pp. 339–49.

18 A somewhat dated, but still interesting comparison of this penalty to those present in medieaval Serbian and other Slavic laws, can be found in A. S. Jovanović, Prinosci za istoriju starog srpskog prava, drugi deo (Belgrade, 1900), pp. 96–102.

19 See an overview in D. Popović, Constitutional History of Serbia (Paderborn, 2021), pp. 3–39.

20 The gauntlet was first relegated only to the military (whence it had come from) in 1859, and then abolished by the Introductory Act to the Penal Code of 1860.

21 See Mirković, Srpska pravna istorija, pp. 161–2; S. Jovanović, Sabrana dela, tom 3: Ustavobranitelji i njihova vlada / Druga vlada Miloša i Mihaila (Belgrade, 1990), pp. 60; Mirković, ‘Hauptstrafen’, pp. 349–55.

22 T. Živanović, Zakonski izvori krivičnog prava Srbije i istorijski razvoj njegov i njenog krivičnog pravosuđa od 1804. do 1865. (Belgrade, 1967), pp. 439–47; Grubač, Telesna kazna, pp. 51–106.

23 Казнителный законикъ за Княжество Србiю (Belgrade, 1860). Its name is literally Penal Code, but it is sometimes referred to as Criminal Code in newer literature, as that is the nomenclature in use since the twentieth century.

24 Perhaps the most important ones are the introduction of the principle of legality (nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege) and a systematic general part of criminal law, which was lacking until then. See more in D. Nikolić, ‘The 1860 Criminal Code of the Principality of Serbia’, in Konflikt und Koexistenz, pp. 483–531.

25 Generally, in the matter of penalties, the Serbian Penal Code differed significantly from its Prussian role-model. Other noticeable differences can be found in the matter of some crimes specific to the Serbian circumstances. Mirković, Srpska pravna istorija, pp. 168–70.

26 Казнителный законикъ, pp. 17–18.

27 Друге измене и допуне у казнителномъ законику, Зборникъ закона и уредба изданы у Княжеству Србiи одъ почетка до края 1863. године, XVI (Belgrade, 1864), p. 9.

28 More specifically, they could try the crimes of brigandry, robbery, public assault, theft and intentional arson.

29 Законъ, коимъ се неки окружни судови проглашаваю за преке судове, Зборникъ XVI, p. 17.

30 Cenić was a well-educated and politically savvy man. He had studied law and philosophy first in Belgrade, then in Halle, Berlin and Heidelberg. He briefly taught criminal procedure at the Lyceum in Belgrade, before moving on to various administrative and judicial posts. He was Minister of Justice in 1861, 1868–69 (during which time he was also Prime Minister) and 1873–74, and then served as the President of the State Council from 1875 until his retirement in 1889. He was a member of the Society of Serbian letters and later an honorary member of the Serbian Learned Society, both forerunners of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. See more about his life in T. Vasiljević, Đorđe Cenić: razvoj krivičnopravne misli u Srbiji XIX veka (Belgrade, 1987), pp. 4–7, 26–7, etc.

31 Ђ. Ценић, Обясненѣ Казнителногъ законика за Княжество Србiю (Belgrade, 1866). While the final volume bears the year 1866, it was first issued in parts to subscribers starting in 1865. Vasiljević, Đorđe Cenić, pp. 118–19.

32 This was covered in more detail in N. Kršljanin, ‘Komentari Đorđa Cenića o telesnoj kazni’, in S. Vukadinović (ed.), Pravo i javne delatnosti: Liber amicorum Jovica Trkulja (Belgrade, 2024), in print.

33 Ђ. Ценић, Обясненѣ Казнителногъ законика за Княжество Србiю (Belgrade, 1866), pp. 79–84.

34 See, for example, Geltner, Flogging Others, pp. 68–81; A. D. Crocker, S. A. Pete, ‘Letting go of the lash: the extraordinary tenacity and prolonged decline of judicial corporal punishment in Britain and its former colonies in Africa: Part 1’ Obiter 28/2 (2007), pp. 271–90; Sentencing Structure in Canada: Historical Perspectives. Research reports of the Canadian Sentencing Commission (Ottawa, 1988); A. M. Kirkpatrick, ‘Corporal Punishment’, Criminal Law Quarterly 10, (1968), pp. 320–28.

35 Д. Н. Жбанковъ и В. И. Яковенко, Тѣлесныя наказанiя въ Россiи въ настоящее время (Moscow, 1899), pp. 22–7.

36 U. Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 264–75; K. F. Schull, ‘Criminal codes, crime, and the transformation of punishment in the late Ottoman Empire’, in: K. F. Schull, M. S. Saraçoğlu, and R. F. Zens (eds) Law and legality in the Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey (Bloomington & Indianapolis, 2016), pp. 156–78.

37 See more in Popović, Constitutional History, pp. 49–51.

38 Amendments of a broader scope had been passed in 1861 and 1863.

39 The exception to that, according to Prince Mihailo’s National Assembly Act of 1862, were cases considering the power the Prince – the adoption of an heir, the election of a new Prince if the previous died heirless, or the appointment of regents to an underage Prince. In those cases, a special, Great National Assembly was summoned, four times larger than the ordinary one, which had the power to decide in those cases. When the Constitution of 1869 granted legislative power to the ordinary Assembly, it also gave the Great one the competence for changing the Constitution or ceding or exchanging a part of the state territory. More of the Great Assembly in N. Kršljanin, ’The Great National Assembly of Serbia: A sovereign representative body or a political myth?’, in E. Ripoll Gil, and S. Serra Busquets (eds), El parlamentarisme en perspectiva històrica. Parlaments multinivell, 2, vols (Palma 2019), vol. 1, pp. 125–40.

40 This, however, led to the opinions of Prince’s men often dominating the uneducated majority, which is why in the Constitution of 1888 this provision was changed, and every party had to nominate at least two candidates with higher education for every electoral district. N. Kršljanin ’Ustanova kvalifikovanih poslanika po Ustavu Srbije od 1888. godine’, in Vladan Petrov et al. (eds.), Ustav Kraljevine Srbije od 1888–125 godina od donošenja (Belgrade 2015), pp. 217–34.

41 N. Kršljanin, ’The Serbian legislative Assembly of 1870: a step towards parliamentarism’, Parliaments, Estates & Representation 41, (2021), pp. 297–313.

42 See, for example, Z. Mirković, ’Tri priče iz narodne skupštine za vreme važenja Ustava iz 1869. godine’, in N. Kršljanin, U. Stanković, 150 godina od donošenja Ustava Srbije iz 1869. godine (Belgrade, 2021), pp. 123–32.

43 The members of the committee were Kovanović, M. Blaznavac, N. Radovanović, M. Piroćanac, K. Stojišić, N. Krstić, D. Radović, M. Damnjanović and Đ. Pantelić – mostly educated men on the government’s side. Protokoli Narodne skupštine koja je držana u Kragujevcu 1873. god (Belgrade 1873), pp. 22–3.

44 All the dates in the paper are given according to the Julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in Serbia (then part of the Kingdom of SCS) only in 1919.

45 Protokoli, pp. 337-42.

46 It is interesting that general prevention is not mentioned as a purpose, but it is likely that it was tacitly implied.

47 The use of this argument may reflect some influence of the (much weaker) movement for abolishing the death penalty. For a comparative overview of abolitionist thought in Serbia and Europe at the time, see I. Janković, Na belom hlebu: smrtna kazna u Srbiji 1804–2002 (Belgrade 2012), pp. 112–17, 122–8, 145–53.

48 See M. H. van der Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls and Beratlis in the 18th Century (Leiden – Boston, 2005), pp. 19–61; H. Hattenhauer, Europaische Rechtsgeschichte (Heidelberg, 2004), pp. 533–40; A. H. De Groot, ‘The historical development of the capitulatory regime in the Ottoman Middle East from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries’, Oriente moderno 22, (2003), pp. 575–604.

49 Protokoli, pp. 342–65.

50 The MPs who spoke out in favour of keeping the status quo and corporal punishment were D. Milovanović, R. Milošević, M. Damnjanović, M. Vulić, J. Marić, M. Lazić, Mandić, A. Petković, N. Mihailović, R. Cvetković. Those who supported the proposal of abolishing it were K. Velikić, A. Pantić, M. Smiljanić, Lj. Kaljević, Ž. Karabiberović (president/chairman of the Assembly), S. Nestorović, P. Grković, P. Srećković (secretary of the Assembly), M. Đ. Milićević and, in the end, Cenić himself. It is interesting to note that Petković, who was originally against the proposal, declared at the end of the discussion that he was neither in favour nor against and thus would not vote.

51 The phenomenon of hajdučija, initially a guerilla opposition to the Ottoman conquerors and later degraded to little more than brigandry is a complex one. See more in O. Milosavljević, Gorski carevi. Hajdučija u Čačanskom i Rudničkom okrugu u drugoj polovini 19. veka (Čačak, 2016); specifically on Jevđović pp. 205-28. See also S. Nedeljković, ‘Organizovani kriminalitet kao višeznačna potkultura: hajdučija između građanske i nacionalne ideologije, i između narodne i nacionalne kulture’, Glasnik Etnografskog muzeja 70, (2006), pp. 235–69.

52 Protokoli, pp. 355–64.

53 Cenić also remarks that some peoples have had blood flowing in streams before they managed to attain social equality, and that Serbia was fortunate that it had no need for that. This is obviously an allusion, most of all, to the French Revolution – but once again, the concrete country is not mentioned: another example of Cenić avoiding to explicitly give negative examples regarding European countries.

54 Protokoli, p. 364.

55 Protokoli, pp. 364–5.

56 Rešenje o ukidanju telesne kazne, Zbornik zakona i uredava izdanih u Knjažestvu Srbiji u 1873/4 godini, XXVI (Belgrade, 1874), pp. 37-8.

57 Vasiljević, Đorđe Cenić, pp.204-205; Grubač, Telesna kazna, pp. 146–49.

58 Vasiljević, Đorđe Cenić, p. 257.

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Nina Kršljanin

Nina Kršljanin is an Assistant Professor at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, Department of Legal History, where she teaches the courses Serbian Legal History and Serbia in International Relations, and assists with the teaching of Comparative Legal Traditions. She has a PhD in medieval Serbian law (‘Serbian medieval charters as the source of Dušan’s Code’). Her other research areas include parliamentary history, customary law and the influence of personal factors (such as class, gender and religion) on an individual’s legal status throughout history. She is the editor-in-chief of the Herald of Legal History, a student journal publishing young researchers’ work in the field of legal history.