Separate Offense Research Articles

The Negative View of Iraqi Law on the Crimes of Witchcraft and Sorcery

Objective: The article aims to highlight the serious crime that the law remained oblivious to it whether in treatment or criminalizing it. Although all monotheistic religions recognize it, the position of the Arab legislator differed from that. Some of them put an explicit text criminalizing witchcraft as a separate offense, and some put it under the crime of fraud, including the Iraqi Penal Code. Methodology: This article explains the nature of witchcraft and the methods used for it, and clarified the effect of witchcraft on the individual and society, and the witchcraft crime in terms of human rights. It will also look at the views of the Islamic religion, in relation to witchcraft and sorcery and the position of the Iraqi legislator and some Arab countries on it. Result and discussion: The crime of witchcraft is an independent crime and cannot be considered a crime of fraud due to the seriousness of its consequences according to the legislation in some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Conclusions: Man has practiced magic and sorcery throughout the ages, and surprisingly, they are still practicing it in the current era, on a large scale. It submitted that the crime of witchcraft should not be considered as one of the crimes of fraud. It is necessary to put a specific article that applies to the real act (witchcraft and sorcery) and mind it as one of the most dangerous acts that the legislator must face with the harshest penalties.

Legal Position of Criminal Act of Political Corruption as Part of Reflection Money Political Practice

Until now, there has been no specific regulation regarding the crime of political corruption in the laws and regulations in Indonesia, but this kind of activity has become familiarly mentioned. This phenomenon makes the legal position of the criminal act of political corruption worthy of being a separate offense in a material criminal law regulation. The purpose of writing this article is to determine the legal position which can later be used as material to formulate a new criminal act in the form of political corruption in the applicable positive law. This article uses the normative juridical research method through statute approach, comparative approach, and conceptual approach, which aims to critically examine the legal position of the criminal act of political corruption as part of the reflection of money politics practices. The study results indicate that in the context of future legal reforms, money politics as a form of political corruption must be regulated as a special offense in the law on eradicating corruption. The novelty offered by the authors in this article is the idea of the need to criminalize political corruption as a separate crime in the future.

Estudio comparado entre España y México sobre el marco jurídico aplicable al feminicidio

La idea de llevar a cabo el presente trabajo surge a raíz de los casos de feminicidios que en los últimos años están teniendo lugar en España y la consecuente necesidad de que el gobierno tome todas las medidas posibles para atajar la comisión de los actos delictivos que causan el asesinato de mujeres, empezando por la tipificación del feminicidio como un delito autónomo en el Código Penal español. Al hilo de estas circunstancias en este trabajo, se realiza un análisis de las causas que dan lugar a la comisión de tales actos, se argumenta la necesidad de su tipificación y se proponen algunas estrategias para erradicar la violencia feminicida. Asimismo, estos mismos parámetros analíticos (causas, tipificación y estrategias para su erradicación) se utilizan para estudiar la cuestión de los feminicidios en México.

CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT OF LEGISLATION ON CRIMINALIZATION OF ANIMAL CRUELTY

With the development of modern societies, public perceptions of animals are changing. The existence of animals begins to be seen not only as an element of property, but also gaining self-worth, and it requires an understanding of the ability of animals to feel pain, stress and suffering. Cruelty to animals has a wide public outreach and requires special attention by state competent authorities and judicial authorities to control, detect and sanction different acts of animal cruelty. Such acts should be treated as socially dangerous actions and the perpetrators should be prosecuted as there is a scientifically proven connection between cruel treatment of animals and lasting irreversible consequences on the human mentality with subsequent criminal acts. According to the national legislation of the different countries, acts of cruelty are being criminalized concerning different categories of animals or only some of them - pets, productive animals, experimental animals. Typically, specimens of wildlife as well as invertebrates are not the subject of criminalization for cases of cruelty, but of other types of crime such as illegal trade.In Bulgaria, until 2011 the specific animal welfare legislation did not give sufficient provisions for prevention of violence against animals. This led to the need to adopt amendments to the Penal Code with texts criminalizing the cruelty to animals in the country.The present study analyzes the adopted texts in the Penal Code as well as the specific veterinary legislation in order to clarify the responsibilities of the competent authorities and the sanctions imposed in case of animal cruelty acts. In Bulgaria, any manifestation of cruelty to a vertebrate animal that has led to the death, severe or permanent disability has been raised by the legislator as a separate offense with criminal liability against the perpetrator. Actions other than those defined as a commitment of an offense against animals under the new provisions of the Penal Code, shall be regarded as violations under the Act on Veterinary Activities and the Animal Protection Act and shall be subject to administrative sanctions. For a clearer definition of the nature of the action itself, a definition of the term "cruelty" is provided within the Animal Protection Act.The administrative punishment body should assess any case of cruelty against a vertebrate animal and report whether it is a criminal offense within the meaning of Art. 325b of the Penal Code, in order to avoid violation of the non bis in idem principle.

European experience of offense prevention in the information sphere

Offenses in the information sphere are becoming more widespread with the development of information technology. Serious considerations are given to the combination and correlation of corporate regulations of information processing, which are mainly enshrined in confidentiality or security policies, with the requirements of national legislation on civil law, administrative law, and criminal law protection of various categories of information. The article analyzes the most common violations in the information sphere: cybercrime and disinformation, the European experience in combating such violations. Recommendations for law enforcement agencies of Ukraine are proposed, as well as assumption of adoption of legal responsibility for disinformation as a separate kind of information offense is made. The conclusion for the impotence of trainings for staff of the prosecutors and judges in order to enhance their skills in cybercrime proceedings regarding digital evidence collection, transmission and storage is made. This will facilitate the understanding of technical and legal peculiarities of cybercrime proceedings by the staff of the prosecutors and judges. The implementation of the provisions of the Cybercrime Convention in the national legislation of Ukraine will facilitate the efficiency of requests for the preservation of electronic evidence, the provision of information by national Internet service providers, the response to legal aid requests etc., in particular in connection with European evidence-base collection system. Taking into account negative consequences caused by disinformation, in the near future legal liability for this type of information offense can be enshrined by law in the form of a separate offense for systematic intentional distribution of the false, inaccurate or misleading information. Such consolidation will be preceded by comprehensive consideration of technical, legal, sociological and even psychological conditions and the consequences of the dissemination of false information.

Changes in Arrest Patterns of Buyers and Sellers of Commercial Sex: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis

Although the commercial sex trade consists of three distinct parties—buyers, sellers, and facilitators—sellers are the most likely to be criminalized for their role in prostitution. In 2015, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill (S.B.) 825. This bill created separate offense codes for buyers and sellers of commercial sex. Prior to this, buyers and sellers were legally indistinguishable from each other under Texas law. Legally distinguishing buyers from sellers recognizes that different roles exist within the commercial sex trade, and serves as a necessary prerequisite for creating divergent pathways for individuals in these roles (e.g., targeting buyers with criminal sanctions, but providing sellers with access to victim services and diversion programs). This study examined whether S.B. 825 was associated with a shift in the number of buyers and sellers arrested for prostitution in Harris County, Texas. Findings revealed that the enactment of S.B. 825 corresponded with an increase in the number of prostitution arrests buyers accounted for, and an observable decrease in the number of prostitution arrests sellers accounted for. These changes remained relatively stable over a one-year period after the bill took effect.

THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF SEPARATE (UNITARY) CRIMINAL OFFENCES

The article analyses the aspects of the understanding of separate (unitary) criminal offense. Under Section 23 of the Criminal Law, separate (unitary) criminal offenses can be subdivided into simple and complex unitary criminal offenses. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of complex criminal offenses, such as constituent criminal offenses, continuous and continuing criminal offences. The criteria for the delimitation of complex offenses from conceptual aggregation and factual aggregation of criminal offenses are also considered.

Cyberstalking: are we on the same (web)page? A comparison of statutes, case law, and public perception

PurposeAs society becomes more technology oriented, cyberstalking is becoming an increasing concern. The purpose of this paper is to compare US state and federal statutory and case law to a survey of public perception of cyberstalking to examine if cyberstalking laws reflect public opinion.Design/methodology/approachA national sample of 303 participants ranging in age from 18 to 69 years (M=33.35, SD=10.45) completed a novel cyberstalking survey and demographic questionnaire. The survey encompassed participants’ perceptions about the scope of cyberstalking as a crime, views on punishment of cyberstalking, and behaviors they have engaged in online or experienced from others that could constitute cyberstalking.FindingsFindings indicated numerous areas of disagreement between public perception and statutory case law, such as a public preference that cyberstalking be treated as a separate offense from stalking, that a threat of violence is not required for behavior to constitute cyberstalking, and that there should be a private civil cause of action for cyberstalking. Findings also indicated that a substantial minority of participants had engaged in or been the victim of cyber actions that could be considered cyberstalking, and that the public preferred sanctions other than incarceration for cyberstalking.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine whether cyberstalking policy in the USA reflects public perception of cyberstalking.

Honest Services Fraud as a Criminal Breach of Fiduciary Duties

From a comparative perspective, the challenges that American courts and legislators are facing when trying to construe an honest services fraud statute are familiar. Almost all European countries have a general provision that criminalizes any breach of fiduciary duties that brings about economic harm to the principal. The comparative inquiry also helps shed light on the way in which the offense should be defined in a future statute. First, honest services fraud should be treated as a separate offense that is different from fraud; more specifically, the offense of honest services fraud should be conceived as a midpoint between fraud and embezzlement. Second, this offense—which could be defined as a “disloyalty” or “mismanagement” crime—should be construed along the lines of a derivate action for breach of fiduciary duties, although with higher standards, given that its violation triggers criminal sanctions. Third, this new disloyalty offense should include elements that are not required by current law, including whether “actual” or “reasonably foreseeable harm” is caused and whether the breach of the fiduciary duty is the proximate cause of the actual harm. The time has come to create a freestanding general disloyalty offense that requires an actual or reasonably foreseeable harm to the corporation as a prerequisite to criminal liability.

Criminal Complicity - Accomplice Criminal Liability to the Criminal Offences 'A Comparative Analysis Between the Egyptian Criminal Law System and the Criminal Law System of the United States of America'

Complicity is a broad doctrine that imposes criminal responsibility on individuals for a crime committed by someone else, usually because these secondary actors have intentionally helped or encouraged the primary actor to commit the crime.However, complicity also imposes responsibility based on other criminal law doctrines, such as conspiracy. In that regard, conspiracy differs from accomplice liability. In most jurisdictions, a person may be held accountable for the conduct of a co-conspirator who commits a crime in furtherance of their agreement. In the latter case, the mere existence of the conspiracy is sufficient to justify liability for the other’s conduct; therefore, assistance in commission of the crime is not required. The relevant difference between conspiracy and accomplice liability is that, while an agreement is an essential element of the crime of conspiracy, aid sufficient for accomplice liability may be given without any agreement between the parties. Accordingly, conspiracy has been adjudged a separate and distinct offense from that of aiding and abetting since it involves the additional element of preconcert and connivance not necessarily inherent in the mere joint activity common in adding and abetting.On the other hand, the concept of personal liability with regard to the accomplice liability as distinguished from vicarious liability is deeply rooted in criminal law jurisprudence. In this respect, The Anglo-American courts impute the acts of the primary party to the secondary actor. That means, once a person becomes an accomplice of another, his identity as a person subject to criminal punishment is subsumed in that of the primary party. In this research paper, we will focus on a form of complicity called accessorial or accomplice liability looking at this both legal concept as it is understood both in Egypt and in the United States. In general, individuals who help another person to commit a crime are accessories or accomplices to that offense and also liable for its commission. Moreover, statutes and case law will use terms like “aid, abet, assist, solicit…etc.”to describe the various sorts of conduct that can generate accomplice liability. There are, however,differences between the -Egyptian and American legal systems- in how they determine accomplice liability and punish those who are found to be complicit.

Article 28 of the ICC Statute: Mode of Liability and/or Separate Offense?

Article 28 of the ICC Statute encapsulates the concept of command or superior responsibility. This is a complex and multilayered concept of liability. It is, on the one hand, a mode of liability, and, on the other hand, a separate offense. It is noteworthy that certain national laws recognize the various "layers" of superior responsibility in that they criminalize these different concepts of superior responsibility in separate provisions. In that sense a "conceptual distinction" is made. Article 28 of the ICC Statute does not provide for such a distinction. The distinction the provision does make, however, is that between military and nonmilitary superiors. To this author's opinion that distinction should be removed and replaced by a conceptual distinction.

Republic of Belarus: Detailed Assessment Report on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism

This paper discusses key findings of the Detailed Assessment Report on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) for the Republic of Belarus. The assessment reveals that compliance supervision in Belarus is detailed with a strong culture of onsite examination. Two agencies exercise financial intelligence responsibilities. Money laundering offenses are investigated and successfully prosecuted. Some capacity exists to cooperate internationally. However, the legal framework is incomplete and, in some places, misdirected. Legislation criminalizing terrorist financing as a separate offense has not been adopted.

RETHINKING THE OFFENSE PRINCIPLE

This paper explores the Offence Principle. It discusses whether two constraints, additional to the criteria stated in conventional analysis, ought to be met before the Offense Principle can be satisfied: (i) that offensive conduct must be a wrong, and (ii) that the conduct must also lead to harm. The nature of the Harm Principle, and its relationship to the Offense Principle, are also considered. The paper suggests that, even if all cases in which offense should be criminalized also involve harm, nonetheless there may be good reasons to retain a separate Offense Principle.

Intoxicating Liquors. Keeping of Whiskey Which Defendant Had at Date of Offense Previously Charged Held a Separate Offense Supporting a Second Charge

Intoxicating Liquors. Keeping of Whiskey Which Defendant Had at Date of Offense Previously Charged Held a Separate Offense Supporting a Second Charge