2023-04-26 07:00:00
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) is apparently planning to partially decriminalize the crime of hit-and-run if only property damage was caused, reports the editorial network Germany. The law remains unchanged for accidents involving personal injury. According to an initial letter, the Ministry of Justice intends to treat this as an administrative offense so that the fine will not be entered in the criminal record. Until now, a person involved in an accident must remain at the scene of an accident for a “reasonable amount of time” and identify themselves as the cause of the accident. Failure to do so could result in a fine or up to three years in prison.
This also applies to minor damage, for example if another vehicle is damaged when parking out, whereby the term “reasonable” is not clearly defined and can ultimately be defined by a magistrate. “We welcome the initiative to decriminalize hit-and-run accidents in the case of pure property damage,” explains Malte Dringenberg from the Automobile Club of Germany (AVD). “Because this increases the chance for the injured party that he will not be left with his damage”.
According to the proposal by the Ministry of Justice, an online reporting point should be set up in the future to report as the polluter. According to current law, it is not enough to report to the police after a “reasonable waiting time” in order to avoid being reported as a hit-and-run driver. Every year, up to 300,000 cases of hit-and-run accidents are recorded by the police in Germany.
“By downgrading the escape from an accident after pure property damage to an administrative offense, an undifferentiated criminalization of the person who caused the accident would be counteracted,” according to the letter from the ministry to the professional associations, which are asked for comments. Opinions on the project are to be given by May 23, so that the reform can possibly be enacted in law by the end of the year.
A hit-and-run does not only have legal consequences for the person who caused it. The insurance company covers the damage, but then demands the money back. In addition, the insurance company is entitled to cancel the contract because “unauthorized removal from the scene of the accident” constitutes an extraordinary reason for cancellation.
Paragraph 142 of the Criminal Code regulates the criminal offense of hit-and-run and has been controversial for decades. For just as long, lawyers have been arguing about reforming the criminal offense. Already in the early days of the automobile, the authorities decreed that the person who caused the accident had to stop at the scene after an accident. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 31 different ordinances in the individual states of the German Reich, which were replaced in 1909 by the “Act on Traffic in Motor Vehicles”.
The penalties for hit-and-run accidents were significantly tightened by the Nazis. The later Nazi judge Roland Freisler, as State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, justified the new version of the paragraph with the “combating the cowardice and recklessness that characterizes fleeing the scene of an accident”. The paragraph remained in force after the end of the war and was not revised until 1975. (aum/ww)
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