Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski signed on Thursday the Decree of the adopted Amnesty Law, which provides for persons convicted of the crimes of Article 205 “Transmission of an infectious disease” and Article 206 “Failure to comply with health regulations during an epidemic” of the Criminal Code, during of the COVID-19 pandemic, to replace the fine or prison sentence with an alternative measure of probation.
According to this law, persons whose fine is over 1,000 euros or the imposed sentence is replaced by a prison sentence, will receive a suspended sentence of three years, while those persons whose fine is up to 1,000 euros or the imposed sentence is replaced by a prison sentence they will receive a suspended sentence of two years, during which they must not commit a new crime.
Between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022, 1,223 people were fined with MKD 123,000 each. According to the legal regulations, if the imposed fines are not met within 2 years, the judge for execution of sanctions replaces them with a prison sentence with a decision. Due to the non-payment of the fine, the Basic Criminal Court has adopted substitution decisions, with which the fine was replaced by a prison sentence for 280 persons. Following these same decisions, 205 referral acts were issued for serving a prison sentence.
