General Views on Legal Entities as the Subject of the Criminal Offense

In addition to natural persons whom the law recognizes as subjects of the law, the law also recognizes the subjectivity of other persons as bearers of rights and obligations or legal persons. In contemporary criminal law, the form of criminal liability for legal entities has also been introduced, and depending on the national systems of the states, we come across several models that regulate the liability of legal entities. In some legislations, the criminal responsibility of legal persons for the commission of criminal offenses is not foreseen, but only the misdemeanour responsibility is regulated by a special law, in other legislations they are based on the regulation of the responsibility of legal persons for the commission of criminal offenses by special laws (thus, Slovenian, Croatian, Kosovar legislation, etc.), while in AngloSaxon criminal law and in most European criminal legislation, it means the responsibility of legal entities for the actions of its bodies and responsible persons, in the framework of general criminal legislation. In the Republic of North Macedonia, with the Amendment of the Criminal Code of Macedonia of 2004, criminal liability is also provided for legal entities and a special system of criminal sanctions. It is about innovation that contains a variety of specifics in relation to the general concept of the criminal offense: criminal responsibility for legal entities, which is collective and presumed in nature, as opposed to the responsibility of natural persons, which is individual and subjective.