Zoran Čvorović, LLD*
FIGHTING
BRIGANDRY IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF SERBIA: BETWEEN LEGALITY AND
SECURITY
(Until 1861)
This article is concerned on social and legal phenomenon of brigandry, and it’s degradation from a form of fight for national liberation during the period of Otoman occupation into a serious criminal problem in restored Prinicipality. Accordingly, the first chapter of the article determines causes that led to massive occurrence of brigandry in Serbs during the Otoman rule. Central part of the work presents criminal and procedural actions that the Principality of Serbia enforced to contain brigandry. The fight against bringandry is analyzed from the point of numerous legal documents dedicated to this criminal act, enacted from the beginning of Milos Obrenovic’s rule to the moment the first Serbian Criminal law (Kaznitelni zakon za Knjazevstvo Srbiju) was adopted. In that respect, exceptional character of specific measures that the state was undertaking against brigands is studied in this article, and in particularly their relation to principles of legality and to specific basic personal rights guaranteed by (so called) Turkish Constitution from 1838.
Key words: brigandry, criminal law, Principality of Serbia, Uzice’s law.