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The paper aims at presenting a (new) discipline- law and economics also known as economic analysis of law that has not fully taken hold in Croatian theory and practice. Following the introductory remarks the second part of the paper deals with basics of economic analysis of law, a separate scientific discipline that makes use of economic analysis as a means for evaluation of laws and regulations or to use the institutionalists' terms - institutions, their economic efficiency and social adequacy. The third part of the paper gives a survey of economic analysis of law application in a case study of defining the term of imprisonment as a sanction imposed for committing criminal offences. The fourth part comments briefly on why this approach to law has not fully taken hold in Europe while being quite popular in the United States not only in academic circles but in (legal) practice as well. Concluding remarks point out potential deficiencies in this approach to law; nevertheless they can encourage further research in this exceptionally interesting scientific discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the course of criminal proceedings in Hungary and the continantal part of Croatia at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. Author focuses on the specific historical context which surrounds the legal procedure and reveals its medieval origin. Most of the procedural forms were based on customary law while there was no idea of state sovereignity and its legislative power. Procedure was slow and ineffective and criminal prosecution always started with a private action because there was no public interest in prosecuting the criminal offences. Modernization, introduced by Habsburg monarchs at the beginning of the 16th century, which tried to install the concept of public criminal prosecution, was strongly opposed by Hungarian and Croatian nobility deeply rooted in their ancestral freedoms and privileges. This paper is based on ,,Directio methodica", a book by Ivan Kitonić, who was one of the leading experts of his time on legal procedure. ,,Directio methodica" was first published in 1619. and it was intended to serve as a guide-book for parties without any legal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]