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Money Laundering by Defence Counsel – The Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Anne Bussenius

Extract

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Ever since the incorporation of § 261, the offence of money laundering, into the Strafgesetzbuch (StGB – German Penal Code), the application of this statute to defence counsel has been discussed controversially. The debate stems from the extensive range of the statute, which calls not only for punishment of people who, for example, committed clandestine acts in order to conceal the criminal origin of a “dirty” object, but also from section 2, which addresses those who simply procured objects deriving from any prior crime enumerated in the money laundering offence. For defence counsel the risk of making themselves liable for prosecution is extraordinarily high. Since it is the nature of their profession that they deal with the accused and receive payment for their work, they are more likely to come in contact with and receive “dirty” money than most other people. The threat is intensified by § 261 sec. 5 StGB, a special rule on the mens rea requirement. According to this section, the money laundering offence does not necessarily require the person to know about or act with contingent intent as to the incriminated origin of the object. Instead, it is sufficient if he or she does not realise the origin, even though it was obvious, and thus acts grossly negligently concerning the incrimination of the object. Therefore, § 261 Abs. 5 StGB poses a serious threat to defence counsels since they obtain facts about their clients in order to fascilitate defence, which then may lead to the allegation that they should have realised the criminal origins of the money they received as a fee.

Information

Type
Public Law
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 9 , 01 September 2004 , pp. 1045 - 1055
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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