Politics

How do you Pay a Fine for an Assault in Croatia? In Deutsche Marks, of Course!

By 8 April 2016

It's nice to see some laws are regularly updated.

These days everyone is talking about the Croatian laws and the fact that they change so quickly they are impossible to keep up with. But in some instances, it takes a high profile case or two to unveil that some laws have not been changed for decades and still have fines that require payment in a currency that no longer exists.

This "problem" became apparent after the attack on Ante Tomić last week and the attack on a Split city official Marina Protićon the very same day. The suspects were taken to court, and they are now facing a 30-day prison sentence or a fine of 50-350 Deutsche Marks (payable in kuna).

Yes, you read it right. Deutsche Marks. The same currency that ceased to be a legal tender in Germany with the introduction of Euro back in 2002. It's hard to believe no one was sentenced for this particular misdemeanor since 2002 so no one noticed this "glitch" in the system. Or maybe all culprits were automatically sentenced to he 30-day prison sentence to avoid the conundrum of calculating the worth of 50 - 350 DEM in kuna because that would require some serious Google time to try and find the exchange rate from the date when this Legislation came into power. 

At least the fines were not expressed in Swiss Franks because changes in that exchange rate over the last decade would surely cause a headache or two during calculations.

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