THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF COMPLICITY IN CRIMINAL LAW

Complicity is one of the most complex forms of crime. The paper presents the development of this criminal law institute, starting from the legal sources of the ancient world, the slave-holding society, and the feudal society criminal legislation. The authors also analyze the emergent forms of complicity in the French bourgeois society and German law. In particular, the authors focus on the institute of complicity in the criminal legislation of feudal (medieval) and bourgeois Serbian society, in the Principality of Serbia, the Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Finally, the authors examine the criminal legislation of post-World War II Yugoslavia and the contemporary criminal legislation of the Republic of Serbia. The aim of the paper is to point out to possible directions for the reform of this very important criminal law institute.