CRIMINAL ACTS INVOLVING FAILURE TO ACT PURSUANT TO HEALTH REGULATIONS DURING AN EPIDEMIC AND TRANSMISSION OF CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

Abstract

In addition to massive implications for the health and business segments, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to a high increase in public attention towards criminal acts that sanction the spread of infectious diseases. These criminal acts occupied a marginal position among the professionals public and scholars dealing with crime and criminal activity, until the outbreak of the pandemic. Thus, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other things, contributed to the fact that the two criminal acts in question, which were, until recently, practically invisible, move to the center of attention of the scientific and professional public. Undeniably human health is one of the most important segments protected by criminal law. The pandemic and its consequences represent a considerable challenge not only in terms of timely adaptation of the health system, but also in the functioning of the socioeconomic segment of society, given that the consequences of COVID-19 occur quickly and have long-term implications in an economic and social sense, but also the legislative sense because it is precisely the segment of adopting new and/or updating existing laws and bylaws that must follow current social events. Keeping that in mind, solutions presented in criminal law are especially important. The paper analyzes the general impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all vital aspects of the society, after which attention is focused on the analysis of the criminal treatment of actions that primarily consist of failure to act pursuant to health regulations during an epidemic and transmission of contagious diseases