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Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe: "Outstandingly important" goal
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / UJ Alexander
The state may take away their illegally obtained assets from criminals even if they can no longer be convicted for their actions due to the statute of limitations.
The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe announced that this was "due to overriding interests of the common good" permissible as an exception.
It is therefore certain that an important component of the asset recovery reform, which was reformed in 2017, can remain in force.
(Az. 2 BvL 8/19)
The instrument aims to ensure that criminals do not benefit from their wrongly obtained assets after they have served a few years in prison.
Above all, politicians hope that this will bring success in the fight against organized crime.
In 2018, for example, 77 properties were provisionally confiscated in Berlin and Brandenburg that are said to belong to a clan of Arab origin.
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Such an approach has become easier with the reform.
Among other things, there is now a separate limitation period for asset recovery, which only expires after 30 years.
Assets may also be confiscated from criminal offenses that were statute-barred even when the reform came into force.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) held this point unconstitutional and suspended proceedings from Lower Saxony in 2019 in order to have the question clarified by the Federal Constitutional Court.
Usually the principle of criminal law is that no one can be punished for something that was not prohibited at the time of the offense.
In this special case, the constitutional judges consider the - actually inadmissible - retroactive effect to be justified.
Eliminate an advantage that may encourage further action
"The asset recovery is intended to show both the offender and the legal community that an increase in assets contrary to criminal law is not recognized by the legal system and therefore cannot endure," it says in their decision.
This goal is "extremely important".
The protection of legitimate expectations of the person concerned must therefore resign.
The majority of the judges of the Second Senate agreed that the assets remain tainted with the stigma of their origin even after the statute of limitations has expired.
They also point out that asset recovery is not legally a punishment.
It is about removing an advantage that could tempt further action.
The CDU member of the Bundestag and former Berlin Justice Senator Thomas Heilmann declared that this was "a good day for security and a bad day for organized crime." Criminals now have to prove where they get their money from - and that is a good thing.
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lmd / dpa