{"id":5897,"date":"2021-10-21T17:32:30","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T17:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pennadvocaten.nl\/?p=5897"},"modified":"2021-10-21T17:32:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T17:32:30","slug":"designates-it-to-easily-designate-a-group-as-a-criminal-organisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/2021\/10\/21\/wijst-het-om-een-groep-te-makkelijk-aan-als-criminele-organisatie\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the prosecution too easily designate a group as a criminal organisation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the ban on a criminal organisation has been in place since the 19e<\/sup>century found in the penal code, the article is still subject to change. Just last year, the maximum sentences were increased if the organisation's aim was to commit crimes carrying a sentence of 12 years or more. Just as sentences against founders, leaders or directors can recently be increased by a third. And there are special laws for organisations with terrorist intent or aiming to commit opium offences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits for the prosecution<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the prosecution, there are certain advantages to designating someone as a suspect for membership of a criminal organisation. For example, no offence need yet have been committed. All that matters is that the organisation has for the purpose<\/em>sets to commit crimes. And even if no punishable predicate offences were committed by the suspect himself, the prosecution only has to prove that the suspect provided assistance to the organisation. This makes it a lot easier to round up suspicion, which, for example, makes it a lot easier for the prosecution to obtain permissions to tap, observe and hack. It is also easier to prosecute the masterminds of certain schemes who do not carry out the prohibited acts themselves. For example, directors of fraud schemes who did not themselves commit or provably direct forgery offences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When is participation in a criminal organisation?<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it is not easy for the prosecution to then actually prove that someone participated in a criminal organisation. Someone who supports a criminal organisation with money or goods, for example, is not automatically punishable. It must be proved that he generally w<\/em>\u00e9\u00e9t <\/em>That the organisation has the intention to commit crimes. This purpose, incidentally, can coexist with legal purposes. But that intention is by no means always clear to the person supporting the organisation. IF the organisation would have the intention to commit criminal offences at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainable and structured partnership?<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then it remains to be seen whether there is an organisation at all. To speak of an organisation, a sustainable and structured partnership between at least two people must be demonstrated. And that is not so easy. An occasional collaboration does not make it a criminal organisation. At most, there is often collusion, which is punished at a lower level. Durability and structure are not clearly defined in case law. They are mostly communicating vessels. The more structured a collaboration is, the shorter it needs to last for it to qualify as an organisation. And a loose connection between persons committing crimes over a long period of time can also fall within the scope of the criminal provision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food for thought<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, discussion is always possible. For example, if the cooperating persons are part of the same group of friends or family. In such contexts, durability and structure are a given, without being allowed to infer a criminal organisation. More is needed for that. Care should also be taken when interpreting conversations. In addition, in close relationships\/relationships, confidential matters are discussed without the other person cooperating or sharing. And if the prosecution's investigation is incomplete, e.g. because too many tap conversations were left out of the file, or because taping was done over too limited a period of time, the prosecution may also be reprimanded by the judge. If, as a result, it cannot be determined whether the prohibited conduct involved individual choices by individual suspects or common objectives, the parties involved should be acquitted, as was fairly recently done by the Arnhem court. In short, participation in a criminal organisation is far from easy for the prosecution to prove. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. D.M. Penn<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hoewel het verbod op een criminele organisatie al sinds de 19eeeuw in het wetboek van strafrecht te vinden is, is het artikel nog steeds aan verandering onderhevig. Vorig jaar zijn de maximumstraffen nog verhoogd, als de organisatie zich ten doel zou stellen om misdrijven te plegen waarop een straf van twaalf jaar of meer staat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strafrecht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penn.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}