Effectiveness and Legal Compliance of Sanctions for Corruption-Related Criminal Offences

Corruption represents a global phenomenon, particularly pronounced in states characterised by weak institutions, economic crises, and challenges in the rule of law. In order to address corruption, states establish both normative and institutional frameworks, whereby, as regards the normative aspect, the fundamental legal act is the Criminal Code, which contains the criminal offences related to corruption. The focus of this research is the effectiveness and legal compliance of the sanctions imposed by the courts in the Republic of North Macedonia for corruption-related criminal offences-specifically, the most frequently sanctioned corruption offences, the type and severity of sanctions, and their compliance with the provisions of the Criminal Code. The research covers a period of eight (8) years, namely from 2017 to 2024, and is based on data obtained from the State Statistics Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of North Macedonia. The findings of the research indicate several conclusions, in particular that the Macedonian judiciary tends to apply a relatively “lenient” penal policy in cases related to corruption, often imposing sentences below the prescribed statutory minimum. What is particularly striking is that 70% of the sanctions imposed during the observed period for perpetrators of corruption offences consisted of the alternative measure of suspended sentence (with a determined term of imprisonment), a measure that is not subject to supervision by the Probation Service. Regarding methodology, the research employed several methods from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives, including the method of content analysis, statistical method, and the method of secondary data analysis.