Berlin.
Misuse of check cards, destruction of notices on the bulletin board: Many paragraphs in the penal code are considered outdated.
Paragraph 266 b of the Criminal Code is tough: there is a risk of up to three years in prison if the court exhausts the full sentence. The paragraph also regulates the “misuse of check cards”. Only: Nobody can pay with check cards in Germany anymore. It was abolished in 2002. That is more than 20 years after the end of the means of payment criminal law still not adjusted. Anyone who raises doubts about the efficiency of the German judiciary will find fodder in Paragraph 266.
The coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP is in its second year. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) announced a comprehensive reform of criminal law shortly before the New Year. “In 2023, criminal law will be a focus of our work. We will systematically comb through the Penal Code. We will examine closely which criminal offenses are historically obsolete. We will delete outdated penal provisions,” Buschmann told our editorial team.
Buschmann: “Dead wood in the penal code obscures the view of the essentials”
As examples of possible obsolete paragraphs the minister mentioned the misuse of “check cards”, these cards had been abolished for more than 20 years. According to current law, tearing a notice off the bulletin board is also a punishable offense if it is an official announcement and is punishable by a fine or even imprisonment for up to one year.
Minister of Justice Buschmann emphasized that penalty is also necessary in a liberal constitutional state. “But criminal law must focus on the violations of the law that are really serious. And dead wood in the penal code obscures the view of the essentials,” said Buschmann.
Reform of the alternative prison sentence: Organizations do not go far enough
In the coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, the federal government states that it wants to examine criminal law “systematically for manageability, justification and contradictory values”. Most recently, the federal cabinet had already introduced a bill to relax the alternative prison sentence. She also wants to go along with the legislative package hatred against women criminalize as a motive for the crime.
The lawyers’ association and other organizations criticized the halving of the alternative prison sentence. For them, the measure should be abolished. The penalty applies if a convicted person cannot pay his fine. In the vast majority of cases, this affects people in poverty and the homeless.
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