Beefed-up Criminal Code
KZ-1E’s description of the criminal offence of violation of fundamental rights of employees omits the word “knowingly”, indicating that said criminal offence can be committed with oblique intent (i.e. the perpetrator was aware that an unlawful consequence might result from his actions but he went ahead with his actions nevertheless). Given the frequency and extent of the violations, a stricter term of imprisonment of up to three years and a monetary fine is foreseen. In the second paragraph of Article 196 of the KZ-1 now a qualified form of a criminal offence of violation of fundamental rights of employees is defined, which is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years and a monetary fine. A qualifying circumstance is either violation of rights of at least 20 employees or violation of rights over a period of at least two years.
Under KZ-1E, the oblique intent of a perpetrator will also be sufficient to prosecute for abuse of position or trust in business, as well as for abuse of office or official duties. Until now, these two criminal offences had to be committed with intent, whereby the perpetrator had to have a criminal purpose (“kazniv namen”) to procure an unlawful benefit for himself or for a third person (or to cause damage to the property), which under KZ-1E is defined as consequence.
KZ-1E also tweaks the criminal offence of defrauding creditors. Causing damage to creditors of up to EUR 50,000 will from now on constitute a lower-end form of the criminal offence. Causing significant property damage (i.e. damage exceeding EUR 50,000), which prior to adoption of KZ-1E constituted a legal element of the lower-end form, now represents qualified (i.e. a graver) form of the criminal offence punishable by imprisonment of between one and eight years.
The foregoing are only some of the changes introduced under KZ-1E with others including a definition of the purpose of punishment, the possibility of deporting foreign nationals, changes to certain terrorism-related criminal offences and the introduction of a new criminal offence of travelling abroad for terrorism. For the criminal offense of abuse of personal data, KZ-1E introduces a new qualified form of the criminal offence, which refers to so-called “revenge porn” – the publication of sexually explicit video or messages without the consent of the person concerned.
