crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
differently in the rest of Yugoslavia. There the peoples councils, or even more simply – the partisan
commands, passed judgment on civil and military matters. They based it on natural law, which was
widespread in those parts of Yugoslavia before the war.
After the capitulation of Italy, lawyers met on the liberated territory (in conferences and congresses)
in Croatia and Slovenia to debate the problems of the future legal system. At the same time, their
leaderships passed several decrees, such as compulsory mobilisation (the partisan movement was not
a voluntary one any more), with sanctions for avoiding it. These decrees defined the crimes of national
treason and crimes against the people. Penal law and the judiciary, both in the forefront of political
activity, had the task of protecting the so-called accomplishments of the liberation movement, meaning
the revolution. The partisan authorities defined and listed the most important crimes, in order of priority:
high treason, which was not only collaboration with the occupier, but the organisation of military forces
outside the liberation movement or against this movement, as well; then ordinary treason (lesser deeds
such as panic, other kinds of sabotage, obstruction of rules, etc.). The last, and least important ones,
were crimes against personal safety and military transgressions. They also made it clear that the ‘old’,
i.e. pre-war laws could not be the basis for passing judgment; but instead, judges should follow the
spirit of the official and political decrees of the partisan movement. It was up to the judges to interpret
and make use of them correctly. In the meantime, they were to translate and study Soviet laws, as well
as the works of Vyshinsky. The principles of Soviet law were to be incorporated into the legal decrees
and practise, such as: the ultra vires principle, the idea of social justness, as well as the principles of the
Soviet policy of punishment – they introduced correctional labour, and later on, labour camps. Other
aspects of law were neither then, nor later (in the immediate post-war period) of great importance.
A true legislative offensive followed the meetings of the Slovene National Liberation Assembly in
February 1944 and the third session of ZAVNOH in May 1944. It went on until the fall of 1944, when
the politburo of the CPY stopped it, for reasons we shall try to explain. By that time, the central partisan
leadership was in Belgrade, from where it started to run the whole country.
Both assemblies acquired legislative powers, beside their political ones, powers that corresponded
to those of AVNOJ (as did other lands, as well). Both appointed Legislative Committees that were to
prepare new laws and regulations. They also passed decrees regarding the organisation and jurisdiction
of people’s councils (narodni odbori, then narodnooslobodilački odbori), rules for their elections,
decrees on civil courts of law, etc. Slovenia went a bit further and established its own institution of Chief
Public Prosecutor, modelled on the Soviet example. Croatia took a different step, and prepared a Code
of Criminal Law and a Code of Criminal Procedure, which was the sole such example in Yugoslavia
for years to come. Both assemblies passed bills on peoples and citizen’s rights (the Croat one differing
slightly, accentuating the rights of Serbs in Croatia). By electing such an Assembly, the Slovenes now
had to determine a new role for their all-purpose Liberation Front. They transformed it into a purely
political organisation that was to operate on the basis of political unity – the pre-war party system was
being disqualified on a daily basis in the party propaganda. In the summer of 1944, elections of the
people’s councils and local OF committees took place on the liberated territory. The Slovene assembly
also set up its own intelligence service (based on the previous VOS). Now it was not a party service any
more, but it became part of the commissariat (future ministry) of internal affairs. They even went so far
as to make independent arrangements to obtain a loan from the Anglo-American military mission for
these purposes. 28 A very similar process was going on in Croatia, where there was a specific situation in
the organisation of the United People’s (or Popular) Front (JNOF – Jedinstveni narodnooslobodilački
front, later called Narodni Front) regarding the position of the Croat Peasant Party. 29 Both lands were
leading a policy of lenience (“politika širine”) towards the non-communists in the movement at the
time. In Croatia it meant a policy against sectarianism and of respect for the demands of the Croat
Peasant Party. In Slovenia, where such demands could not be made, it meant respecting the voice of the
experts – the intelligentsia, which had massively joined the liberation movement after the capitulation
of Italy. There was, of course, no talk of a reinstitution of a coalition within the Front, and there was no
change in policy towards the parties outside the Front. Both leaderships stressed that there would be
28
This encountered a harsh reaction from the central party leadership and Boris Kidrič was suspended and “isolated” (imprisoned) for a
while, because of it, until matters were straightened out. He wrote a “self-critical” letter to the central leadership, pointing out his sincere
allegiance to the Party (J. Vodušek Starič, op. cit., pp. 81–82).
29
The relationship of the Croat leadership towards the Croat Peasant Party and their legislative autonomy, are in my judgement, the main
reasons for relieving Hebrang of his functions in Croatia in October 1944.
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