infamy
Infamy (Latin: infamia = "Shame, Schimpf", lit. "Inexpressible") describes in common parlance a dishonorable ( mean or insidious ) action or dishonor as such. Conceptually, infamy presupposes a society that has a certain understanding of " honor ".
Historically law is meant infamy or infamy the state of limited legal capacity due to the withdrawal or reduction of the civil rights of a person. The loss of civil rights could be declared in German criminal law until 1969 as a secondary consequence of the conviction for certain criminal offenses .
The canon law also knew infamy until 1982 as a result of certain offenses under canon law . As a usually automatic church punishment, it was associated with the revocation of certain membership rights of the believers in the Roman Catholic Church .
General use
During the Enlightenment , Voltaire's great motto against selfishness and infamy of the Christian propagandists and clerical hegemonists of the time was "Écrasez l'infâme!" (means something like "Erase the infamous!").
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing writes: " I can already see where I am with you, you forgotten, worthless, infamous seducer, deceiver ". Friedrich Schiller published his story "The criminal from lost honor" under the title "Criminal from infamy, a true story" .
The original meaning of the term seems to be forgotten. A disgraceful accusation may originally have been an accusation by a dishonorable or unjustified person, possibly as a dishonorable or disenfranchising accusation. Today infam is mostly only used to underline the rejection of the statement, sometimes synonymous with sneaky, outrageous, cynical . The decline of the term is possibly due to the decline of the meaning of the concept of honor, the antithesis of which it represents.
Previously used as a legal term
Roman law
The Roman law recognizes the following terms amending or impairment of the legal status ( capitis deminutio ):
- capitis deminutio minima as a change in family affiliation ,
- capitis deminutio media as loss of citizenship and family membership,
- capitis deminutio maxima as a loss of freedom, citizenship and family membership.
This infamy, the so-called infamia iuris , allowed Roman law to enter into effect as a result of certain acts, either as a direct consequence of the act itself ( infamia immediata ) or only as a result of the judgment that declared the person concerned to be guilty of such an act ( infamia mediata ).
The former was z. B. the case in the event of violation of the widow's year of mourning , the latter in the event of a conviction in the public people's court or as a result of certain private crimes and private lawsuits (e.g. abuse of trust assets by exploiting the position of the owner).
The main consequences of this infamy were inability to hold state and municipal offices, to represent others in court and to give a fully valid testimony.
The concept of limitation of legal capacity found its way into the later Western legal systems via Roman law.
Infamy in the Middle Ages
The protection of the medieval legal systems initially applied to (Catholic) Christians. Heretics (e.g. Waldensians, Cathars), Jews , Muslims and pagans had no rights unless they were guaranteed privileges by the sovereign. These privileges gave their owners at least partial and often regionally limited legal protection.
Christians could lose legal protection and legal capacity if they were convicted of heretics or serious criminals . The condemnation to infamy could also be carried out by a spiritual authority and can be found in the heretic laws of Frederick II and Gregory IX. in the 13th century. Pope Innocent III introduced the inquisition process because of the risks of the prosecution proceedings (accusation proceedings and infamation proceedings) . Many heretics convictions have included convictions of permanent infamy.
Examples:
- Waldensians , Cathars 1252 by Pope Innocent IV.
Web links
literature
- Wilhelm von Humboldt: About the dishonor (infamy) as a criminal penalty [1]
- Michel Foucault: The life of the infamous people (writings, Frankfurt a. M., 2001 ff., 3rd volume, pp. 309-332)