Attempt to incite false testimony
The attempt to incite false testimony is a criminal offense under German criminal law . It is regulated in § 159 StGB . It lies systematically in the testimony offenses .
Legal system
Section 159 of the Criminal Code is an extension of Section 30 of the Criminal Code, as it makes attempting incitement a punishable offense. The attempt is not already covered by Section 30 of the Criminal Code, as the false, unofficial testimony according to Section 153 of the Criminal Code and false affirmation by oath instead of Section 156 of the Criminal Code are offenses under Section 12 (2) of the Criminal Code. The perjury under § 154 of the Criminal Code is not mentioned in § 159 of the Criminal Code because it has a range of punishment of one year, so is a crime and is already comprises of § 30 of the Criminal Code.
Offense
The attempt to incite false testimony covers the cases in which the person making the statement (front man) is influenced and the alleged perpetrator (rear man) wants to make a subjectively false statement. If the influence is successful, only incitement to testify can be considered. If the incitement fails, there is an attempt to incite false statements.
A typical constellation of § 159 StGB is that the person behind tries to incite a person in front who has to testify in court to make a false statement. The person in front cannot be instigated, sticks to the truth or speaks correctly. In addition, the case structure is also recorded that the person in front only objectively makes a false statement, but subjectively acts without intent, as he z. B. is convinced of the correctness of his statement. The person in front is not liable to prosecution according to § 153 StGB, because he acted without intent. The man behind cannot make himself liable to prosecution for inciting false testimony, as there is no unlawful and willful main offense. The man behind the scenes is only liable to prosecution because of the attempt according to § 159 StGB.
In terms of legal policy, this is controversial, as the attempted incitement to a crime is punished for which the attempt is not punishable.
Controversial legal issues
In the literature, it is controversial whether the man behind makes himself liable to prosecution if he tries to incite the man in front to testify in front of a body that is not a competent authority for receiving (false) statements. This would be e.g. B. the case when the man behind wants to get the man in front to make a false statement in front of a mayor (no competent authority within the meaning of § 153 StGB). Since § 159 StGB wants to protect the institutions of the state from false statements, at least the objective facts of § 153 StGB must be realized by the person in front in order to make the person behind him liable to prosecution.
