Research of the Socioeconomic Status of the Suspect and His or Her Right to a Defence Attorney in the Case of Aggravated Larceny

Sa？etak Since Croatia became an EU Member State, its legislation has needed to be fully harmonised with the EU acquis. In this respect, Croatia is continuously adopting and amending its legislation in order to achieve full compliance. By means of the last Amendments to the Criminal P rocedure Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia, No. 70/17), Directive 2013/48/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings and in European arrest warrant proceedings, and on the right to have a third party informed upon deprivation of liberty and to communicate with third persons and with consular authorities while deprived of liberty (OJ L 294/1, 6 November 2013) was transposed into Croatian procedural law. Directive EU 2016/1919 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on legal aid for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and for requested persons in European arrest warrant proceedings (OJ L 297/1, 4 November 2016) directly leans on the provisions of Directive 2013/48/EU. The provisions of Directive EU 2016/1919 are in the process of being transposed in Croatian procedural law. In order to consider the application in practice of the provision of Directive EU 2016/1919 on legal aid for suspects in criminal proceedings in cases of the criminal offence of aggravated larceny, this article describes some of the features (e.g. gender, age, education) of the person suspected of the criminal offence of aggravated larceny. An examination is also made of the suspected person’s exercise of the right to a defence attorney (obligatory defence, exercise of the right to a defence attorney and the presence of a defence attorney during interrogation under Article 208a CPC). The specific objective of the study is to establish the existence of differences in the characteristics mentioned above with regard to socioeconomic status (property and employment status). For this purpose, secondary sources of data were used, such as a survey sample, as well as police records of the criminal acts of aggravated larceny committed on the territory of the Republic of Croatia during 2017, 2018 and 2019 in which the suspects were treated on the basis of the CPC de lege lata. A total of 300 criminal offences of aggravated larceny were analysed for this research