5. Community service
Conditions for pronouncing community service measure
Article 58-b
(1) For the criminal activities for which the law prescribes a fine or an imprisonment
sentence of up to three years, the court may, after the offender agrees, impose the
community service measure, should the crime be committed under alleviating conditions
and the offender has not been previously convicted.
(2) The measure shall be imposed for a time period from 40 to 240 hours during which the
defendant must work without any compensation in a state body, public enterprise, public
institution or a humanitarian organization, but not less than five hours per week, during a
period of at most 12 months. If health or justifiable personal or family reasons exist, the
court may extend the execution of the measure for at most six months.
(3) If the court pronounces a fine of up to 90 day fines or Euro 1.800 in Denar counter-value
or imprisonment of at most three months, it may simultaneously decide, on the request of
the convicted, in exchange of the community service sentence, whereas on day of the
imprisonment, day fine of Euro 20 in Denar counter-value, may be exchanged for three
hours of community service and the total hours shall not exceed 240 hours. When deciding
to exchange the sentence with the community service measure the court will take into
account the gravity of the crime, the level of criminal liability, the previous non-conviction of
the offender and any compensation of the damages or removal of other harmful
consequences of the crime.
(4) A competent body in accordance with the law shall supervise the fulfillment of the
obligations of the convicted person.
(5) If the convicted person fails to fulfill or inappropriately fulfills his working duties, the
competent body in accordance with the law shall send him a written warning, and if he
continues to behave so, the court on a proposal of the competent body in accordance with
the law shall replace the remainder of the measure with a fine or an imprisonment sentence
so that every three hours of community service are calculated as one daily fine or one day
of imprisonment. When deciding to replace the measure with a fine or imprisonment, the
court shall be guided by the gravity of the crime, the level of criminal responsibility and the
attitude of the convicted person towards the imposed community service measure.
(6) If the convicted person fails to perform the community work, imposed in exchange of the
fine or the imprisonment sentence (paragraph 3), the court shall adopt a decision
stipulating the enforcement of the pronounced sentence. The work obligations that the
28/217