Bodily harm offense
In criminology and comparative law , bodily harm is a group of offenses in which violating the physical integrity of another is a criminal offense.
Legal circles
Common law
Continental European legal family
Germany
Austria
Poland
Legal history
The criminal liability of bodily harm, like that of homicides, is one of the oldest legal provisions. Accordingly, they have a long legal dogmatic tradition in the various legal families. This corresponds to very different treatments of these violent crimes, which are difficult to categorize.
Roman law
Violations of physical integrity were already penalized in the Twelve Tables law: the iniuria of Roman law was a delictum privatum , which can best be described as a violation of personality . The iniuria came in two types: as a verbal injuria and as a real injuria, which roughly corresponds to insult and bodily harm. The Twelve Tables Act casuistically listed individual types of real injuria. The most severe case was the mutilation of limbs (membrum ruptum). If the parties were unable to agree on an atonement , the principle of talion applied (subsidiary) :
"Si membrum rupsit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto."
"If someone has mutilated a limb, if he does not compare himself, it should be talio"
The Lex Cornelia de iniuriis replaced the criminal complaint with public punishment for serious bodily harm (atroces iniuriae) .
Germanic rights
The starting point of the Germanic rights differs fundamentally from this: In Roman law, the animus iniurandi was the reason for punishment, whereas the Germanic rights were based on the externally visible success. In the Germanic popular rights of the time from 500 to 800 AD, tax systems were developed that calculated private penalties according to the type and number of affected body parts or according to the number, length and depth of the wounds.
Middle Ages and early modern times
However, the reception of Roman law in the Middle Ages led to a strong adaptation to the Injurien idea, which was also fed by the need for more comprehensive legal protection and therefore had to adopt the purely casuistic solutions of the Germanic. The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of 1532 accordingly does not recognize any actual criminal offense of bodily harm: deliberate bodily harm was included in the real injurie, negligent bodily harm was completely excluded from the field of criminal law. It was not until the 18th century that a return to ideas about German law was brought about. The systematic of the violatio corporis is mainly due to Feuerbach ; his Bavarian penal code of 1813 differentiated physical abuse and damage to health from the real injurie.
literature
- Gerhard Simson and Friedrich Geerds : Crimes against the person and moral offenses in a comparative law perspective . CH Beck, Munich 1969, § 7. Bodily harm.
- Hans Klein: Assault . In: Alexander Elster (greetings), Rudolf Sieverts and Hans Joachim Schneider (eds.): Concise dictionary of criminology . 2nd Edition. tape I . de Gruyter, Berlin 1966, p. 472-481 .
- Lukas Staffler: Past intentionality and attribution dogmatics. On the interpretation of bodily harm resulting in death in a legal comparison between Germany and Italy . Duncker & Humblot Publishing House, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-428-14637-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Gerhard Simson and Friedrich Geerds : Crimes against the person and moral offenses in a comparative legal perspective . CH Beck, Munich 1969, § 7. Bodily harm.