Conditio-sine-qua-non formula
The conditio-sine-qua-non-formula (from late Latin conditio sine qua non , classical Latin : condi c io sine qua non ; literally: "condition without which not", plural: conditiones sine quibus non ) is a formula from the Law and legal practice as well as philosophy . A process or an act that is a conditio sine qua non is a necessary condition for a certain fact and is to be regarded as causal in the legal sense. The validity of this assumption is determined by the equivalence theory ,Condition theory or equivalence theory recorded.
In today's common parlance, the late Latin spelling conditio sine qua non is common, even if it is incorrect in classical Latin . The spelling condicio sine qua non can therefore also be found in specialist legal literature .
Criminal meaning
Conditio sine qua non in the sense of criminal law is any process or action that is causal for a state of affairs, so that the state of affairs would not have come about if the process or act had been ignored.
The assessment of causality is important in addition to criminal law in tort law . With success offenses can only be imposed on anyone who has caused a certain success. In principle, only those who caused it are liable for damage. It is therefore often necessary to determine the cause of a certain consequence in order to find out whether the offense of a legal norm is fulfilled.
Criticism and limitations
The formula and the corresponding theory of equivalence are controversial because the gain in knowledge is small: In order to be able to decide whether success does not apply if you ignore the action, you must already know whether the action is causally relevant for success. At least the conditional formula can make a causal connection evident and in this respect has justification value. In order to determine the causality in difficult cases, however, further considerations and ultimately the use of scientific knowledge are necessary .
In research, cases have been constructed in which the classic formulation seems to fail. The most prominent of these is the Wanderer's Theorem , which is simultaneously pierced by two bullets from the barrels of two hunters' rifles. Since each sphere can be thought away individually without changing anything in the death of the wanderer, the causality would ultimately disappear for both spheres. In this case, an auxiliary formula for the so-called alternative or double causality is used: If there are several circumstances that can be ignored alternatively, but not cumulatively , without losing success, each of them is the cause of the success.
Since the determination of causality by means of the conditio-sine-qua-non formula theoretically leads to an endless breadth of causal actions, the legal consideration must make a liability-limiting correction. For this purpose, criminal law makes use of the doctrine of objective attribution , according to which it is determined whether the act in question contained a danger that was realized in concrete success. In contrast, civil law takes a different approach and asks with the adequacy theory whether the onset of success lies within general life experience, i.e. whether it is adequate. In addition, liability is limited by the question of the protective purpose of the standard .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ See e.g. B. Renate Wahrig-Burfeind: German dictionary. With a lexicon of language teaching. 8th, completely revised and updated edition, reprint. Wissen Media Verlag, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-577-10241-4 , p. 335.
- ↑ . See, for example entry condition at Google .com, entry condicio in Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short: A Latin Dictionary online during project Perseus.
