This Macedonian Criminal Code sets the basic principles and rules regarding the lawfulness in the determination of crimes and prescribing criminal sanctions. The provisions of the General Part of this Law shall be applicable to all crimes determined by the laws of the Republic. Nobody can be imposed a sentence or some other criminal sanction for an act, which prior to its commission is not determined by law or an international agreement ratified in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia as a crime and for which no sentence is prescribed by law. Basis and limits of criminal-legal coercion. The protection of human freedoms and rights and of other basic values, and the application of criminal-legal coercion, when within an extent being necessary to prevent socially harmful activities, represent the basis and limit for determination of the crimes and the prescribing criminal sanctions. Obligatory application of a mitigative criminal law. The law in force at the time when a crime was committed shall be applied upon the person who has committed the crime. If the law has changed once or several times after the crime was committed, the more mitigative law shall be applied to the offender. If this law prescribes a new alternative measure, a safety measure or an educational measure, it can be applied only if it corresponds to a previously prescribed measure and if it is not less favorable for the offender. Criminal sanctions shall be: punishments, alternative measures, safety measures and educational measures.
The text is divided into thirty-five main thematic Chapters and a total of 426 articles. Titles of these Chapters are as follows: I. General provisions; II. Crime and criminal liability; III. Sentences; IV. Alternative measures; V. Safety measures; VI. Educational measures and for sentencing juveniles; VII. Confiscation of property and property benefit and seizure of objects; VIII. Legal consequences of the sentence; IX. Rehabilitation; X. Time barring; XI. Amnesty and pardon; XII. Application of the criminal legislature according to the place of commission of the crime; XIII. Meaning of the terms in this code; XIV. Crimes against life and body; XV. Crimes against the freedoms and rights of humans and citizens; XVI. Crimes against elections and voting; XVII. Crimes against labor relations; XVIII. Crimes against honor and reputation; XIX. Crimes against gender freedom and morality; XX. Crimes against marriage, family and youth; XXI. Crimes against human health (including infectious diseases); XXII. Crimes against the environment and nature; XXIII. Crimes against property; XXIV. Crimes against the cultural heritage and natural rarities; XXV. Crimes against public finances, payment operations and the economy; XXVI. Crimes against the general human and property safety; XXVII. Crimes against safety in public traffic; XXVIII. Crimes against the state; XXIX. Crimes against the armed forces; XXX. Crimes against official duty; XXXI. Crimes against the judiciary; XXXII. Crimes against legal traffic; XXXIII. Crimes against the public order; XXXIV. Crimes against humanity and international law; XXXV. Transitional and final provisions.
Chapter twenty-two (XIX) sets detailed provisions for criminal offenses regarding the pollution of the environment and nature, production, trade or use of substances that impoverish the ozone layer, pollution of drinking water, production of harmful products for treating livestock or poultry, unscrupulous provision of veterinary assistance, transmitting infectious diseases among animal and plant life, pollution of livestock fodder or water, destruction of crops by using harmful substances, appropriation of immovables, illegal exploitation of mineral raw materials, devastation of forests, causing a forest fire, unlawful hunt and fishing, endangering the environment and the nature with waste, unauthorized procurement and possession of nuclear materials, unauthorized production of/dealing with and trade in dangerous materials or harmful organisms or seed and planting material, killing or destruction of protected species of wild flora and fauna, unauthorized introduction of wild species into the nature, unauthorized trade, import or transport of wild flora and fauna, torturing animals, grave crimes against the environment and the nature.