Dispute over sexual criminal law: demands and false accusations in focus

Dispute over sexual criminal law: demands and false accusations in focus

Österreich - The Association of Austrian Criminal Legians (Vös) has recently formulated extensive claims to reform the criminal process in the area of sexual criminal law. The main point of the criticism is the current practice of contradicradic verbs, which is no longer up to date in the eyes of the Vös.

Currently, victims of abuse can be questioned in the investigation, but they are no longer obliged to testify in the main hearing. Your statements are often only played or read out as a video, which triggers the criticism that courts cannot gain a personal impression of the victims. The defense sees her restricted to question, which questions the fairness of the procedure, so Kleine Zeitung .

false accusations: a social problem

A central topic within this discussion is also the false accusations, which are described as "not uncommon". Frank Urbaniok, a forensic psychiatrist, emphasizes that an estimated 2-10% of the advertisements for sexual offenses are "fake truths". People with unstable reality references or manipulative personalities are particularly susceptible to false accusations. Often even victims of actual trauma are caused by false suspicions.

Parents who are particularly affected in the course of such procedures are particularly affected. Urbaniok emphasizes that these people are also victims in a way, since once published accusations on social media are difficult to invalidate. He therefore calls for increased persecution of false accusations as serious crimes as well as a comprehensive media processing of this topic, as in the report of Kleine Zeitung executed.

importance of statement psychology

Another crucial factor in sex criminal law is the statement psychology. This comes into play when the possible injured party's statement is the only evidence against a contested accused. The credibility of the statement has enormous importance in criminal proceedings and is often the subject of judicial assessment. In cases where special expertise is required, the court consults a statement psychological expert. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has determined certain minimum requirements for statement psychological reports, as mentioned on Sexualstrafrecht.hamburg

The assessment of the credibility of a statement not only depends on the quality of the expert opinion, but also on the competence of the experts. An independent expert is essential to pass the method -critical reviews and leave the appreciation of the results to the court. In many cases, it is the defenders who already make a statement psychological analysis of the statements before the prosecutors, which can decisively influence the dynamics in the procedure, as is explained on sexualstrafrecht.de

Overall, it can be seen that both legal framework and psychological aspects in sex criminal law play an important role. In order to maintain the rights of everyone involved and reduce the risk of false accusations, a reform of the current practices is urgently required.