Summary

The decriminalisation of bagatelle offences as an attempt to save judicial authorities from the obligation to process a massive number of minor offences may be effected both on the level of substantive law and the law of procedure, as well as individually and generally. The new Estonian Penal Code divides offences into criminal offences which can only be regulated by the Penal Code and demeanours which may also be regulated by other laws besides the Penal Code. However, in the case of both types of offence, the General Part of the Penal Code is applicable. The author stresses that the creation of the concept of offence does not mean the criminalisation of administrative offences but the objective is their uniform regulation under the penal law as a separate branch of law. By provision of rules for processing criminal offences in the Code of Criminal Procedure, and rules for processing demeanours in an independent Code of Misdemeanours, a simpler and speedier procedure for processing misdemeanours as minor offences is created. Also, the possibility to terminate a proceeding regarding a misdemeanour for reasons of expediency is prescribed. However, the differentiation of criminal offences from misdemeanours in substantive law may, in the opinion of the author, may be problematic under the new Code as it only provides for formal bases for such distinction: punishments of different types and different terminology used in respect of different offences. Criminal offences prescribed by the Penal Code also include offences of less importance which may be regarded as non-genuine bagatelle offences. Therefore, the borderline between criminal offences and misdemeanours is very vague in respect of criminal offences of less importance and more serious misdemeanours. The author is of the opinion that the theory should outline the differences between subtypes of penal law more clearly.