Political suspicion

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Political suspicion is a criminal offense under Section 241a of the German Criminal Code (StGB). Denunciation is then punishable if it can lead to political persecution . This is a so-called specific endangered offense .

text

The wording of § 241a StGB is:

(1) Anyone who exposes another person to the risk of being persecuted for political reasons through a report or a suspicion of being persecuted and of suffering damage to life or limb through violent or arbitrary measures contrary to the rule of law, or of being deprived of their freedom or of their professional or Seriously impaired economic position is punishable by imprisonment for up to five years or a fine.

(2) Anyone who makes or transmits a message about another person and thereby exposes him to the risk of political persecution referred to in paragraph 1 shall also be punished.

(3) The attempt is punishable.

(4) If an untrue assertion is made against the other in the notification, suspicion or communication, or if the act is committed with the intention of causing one of the consequences specified in paragraph 1, or if there is another particularly serious case, imprisonment of one year to ten years.

Constituent elements

The characteristics of the denunciation are either the report or the suspicion regardless of their respective truth content. The addressees of the denunciation can be authorities, associations of persons and also individuals. It is controversial whether this also includes federal German authorities, as they are obliged to comply with the rule of law due to the legality of the administration under Article 20 of the Basic Law , but the application of Section 241a of the Criminal Code presupposes illegal prosecution. However, the growing opinion of applicability to German authorities must be admitted that the risk does not have to come from the recipient authority or person.

It must be a question of political persecution, which can indeed originate from individual population groups of a state, but not because of possibly criminal organizations.

crime scene

If the crime scene is not in Germany, it can only be prosecuted if the person persecuted is a German resident in Germany ( Section 5 No. 6 StGB).

Justifications

The usual grounds for justification come into consideration. However, according to the law of the crime scene, the illegal reporting obligation cannot be a justification.

Rule examples

Section 241a, Paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code provides examples of the untruth of the notification, report or suspicion or the intention of persecution. Even if the penalty framework then provides for a minimum imprisonment of one year, the nature of the criminal offenseremains.

history

The criminal offense was introduced in 1951 by the law for the protection of personal freedom ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 448 , "Lex Kemritz") together with the kidnapping ( § 234a StGB). The trigger is said to be that in the early post-war period there were numerous abductions from the western occupation zones to the Soviet-occupied zone (and later from the Federal Republic to the GDR). In the 1990s, following the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany, there were numerous proceedings against Section 241a of the Criminal Code. The systematic classification behind the threat ( § 241 StGB) results from the special legal regulation. Because of the different protection directions, a classification behind the false suspicion ( § 164 StGB) would have been against the system.

Process specifics

Despite the nature of the offense, it is not the local court in the first instance that is responsible, but rather the state security chamber of the regional court in accordance with Section 74a (1) No. 6 GVG . If the matter is of particular importance, the Federal Public Prosecutor can also file the indictment in the first instance before the higher regional court of the crime scene in accordance with Section 120 (2) GVG . If the scene of the crime is abroad because of Section 5 No. 6 StGB, the court in whose district the persecuted German is domiciled has local jurisdiction ( Section 8 Code of Criminal Procedure ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marion Countess Dönhoff : The case of Kemritz . In: Die Zeit of June 21, 1951

literature