Features of Liability for Economic Crimes in Germany
Continuous improvement of the legislative norms governing criminal liability for economic crimes is relevant for any legal system. In Germany, this issue has become particularly acute in the last two decades, and German lawyers tend to explain this by “absorption” at the very end of the 20th century of the German Democratic Republic, where this account was subject to fundamentally different legislation. Since in Germany the rules on criminal liability for economic crimes are established not only by the country's Criminal Code, but also by many special criminal and non-criminal laws, it is important to have a general definition of this set of criminal acts in the legislation. And if it is not in the current criminal law, then it will inevitably have to resort to what is in the German legal doctrine. The author refers to the attempts to give such a definition in many works of German authors; provides a detailed analysis of the relevant norms of special laws (first of all: of the Act on the Fight against Economic Crimes (Wirtschaftsstrafgesetz)), of legal journals, commentaries to the Criminal Code of Germany, and decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Federal Court. A more or less satisfactory indication of such a definition is contained in the Act on the Fight against Economic Crimes of 1954, which provides for penalties for many economic crimes that are not included in the German Criminal Code, but which are indicated as constituting economic offences in by-laws issued on the basis of special laws in the field of economics. This could be the basis for a complete definition of the concept of the economic crime, if it were not for the fact that ultimately the punishment for a criminal offence could not be established by parliament, but in a by-law issued usually by the executive branch.