Showing, accessing and possessing of pornographic material and using young people for pornography

Abstract

Before all, this paper relates to the criminal act of showing, obtaining and possessing of pornography material and abusing an underage person for pornography from the Article 185 of the Criminal Code, as well as the criminal act of using computer network or communication by other technical means for committing criminal acts against sexual freedom of an underage person from the Article 185b of the Criminal Code. In the introductory part it is emphasized that the generally accepted attitude concerning pornography is that criminal-legal intervention has no place when it comes to adults, and that only children (persons under the age 14) should be given criminal-legal protection. However, since the relevant international legal documents expand the criminal-legal protection under the certain conditions to minors (persons aged between 14 and 18) as well, it was also done in the Criminal Code of Serbia in 2009. A bigger problem today than making pornography accessible to children, i.e. minors, represents the so called child pornography, i.e. using children and minors for producing pornography material. Therefore, in the following part it is pointed out to the international conventions and the definition of child pornography is given, i.e. pornography relevant to the criminal act from the Article 185 of the Criminal Code. Then, the criminal act is explained, that, in fact, it involves more forms, and also even more criminal acts, which, having the same passive subject (child - under the age 14, minor - aged between 14 and 18, or underage person - aged between 0 and 18) and related to pornography, are unified in the same article. Two basic forms are analyzed, hard form, as well as two separate forms of the criminal act from Article 185 of the Criminal Code and safety measures of obligatory deprivation of the object prescribed for this criminal act. Having in mind that the second basic form (Act 2) of the criminal act from Article 185 of the Criminal Code is related to the criminal act of abusing computer network or communication by other technical means for committing criminal acts against sexual freedom of an underage person, this paper points out this relation. In the end of the paper it is mentioned that the legislator decided that the statute of limitations of criminal prosecution and executing criminal sanction are excluded when it comes to, among all, criminal act from Articles 185 and 185b of the Criminal Code, which is done by Law on special measures for prevention of committing criminal acts against sexual freedom of underage persons (the so called Maria's Law). Such a solution is being criticized, therefore in the conclusions, among all, it is suggested that such solution is changed and concerning these two acts (but also other acts from the so called Maria's Law) a general statute of limitations is applied.