Classification of Criminal Оffenses according to the Сriminal and Сriminal Procedure Legislation of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Abstract

The article is devoted to the questions connected with classification of criminal actions in criminal codes of three states of Romano-Germanic legal family – Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The article notes that the classification of the criminal act originated in the French criminal law and has been adopted in most of the countries belonging to the continental legal family. The Criminal Code of 1810 (Code Penal Imperial) secured a three-member structure of the criminal act: crime – délit – contravention. The German Criminal Code (RGSt) of 1871 divided all criminal acts, depending on their severity into three groups: crime (Verbrechen), offense (Vergehen) and violation (Übertretung). The two-member stricter of the criminal act is adopted in the current CC of Germany, Switzerland and Austria: crime and offense. The author analyzes the criminal legislation and the criminal and procedural legislation of the aforementioned countries with a particular focus on value of division of criminal actions on crimes and offenses for criminal and criminal procedural law of the respective countries.