VOL. 4 | ED. 2
DOMESTIC FOCUS Corruption – infringement in the Criminal Law or national phenomenon?
In the European context,
as well as in the national one, corruption has always represented an antisocial, unethical, and illegal behaviour affecting the welfare of the society by favouring the interests of a limited number of individuals. Andreea Mădălina Arapu
As our democratic society aims towards an ideology based on liberty and progression, normality is highly associated with a fast growth of the living standards and the wellbeing of the community. Consequently, this leads to an accelerating desire for swift enrichment, gaining personal advantage and material assets. In this manner, what we define as ‘normality’ gains its significance through the necessity of possessing something. The sensible question which may arise is whether non-participation in the process of stopping corruption and our indifference make us co-authors or participants in crimes, or our endeavors to combat this phenomenon is a benefit to the whole society?
Corruption is not to be taken as a phenomenon which appeared in our present society, its beginnings coinciding with the formation of the concept of society, this behaviour being accepted as a cultural tradition. It is encountered in the smallest and most insignificant actions, such as giving a gift to a doctor, a teacher, a mayor, or any officer who has fulfilled its attributions properly, these ‘gifts’ being used as means of motivation, for facilitating the effectiveness of their work. This practice is not only linked with leadership, corruption being pervasive in small groups with private interests, the purpose being a common one: obtaining some advantages, be they material, juridical, political, through usage of illegal means such as: bribery, compulsion, blackmail, menace, leverage.
This antisocial behaviour is one of the most harming of them all; society needs protection from both the lawmaker, and from any public and private institution, which are active in our present society. It is not only the worth of the community or the integrity of the employees which are being prejudiced. Corruption has an effect on a deeper level of society’s credibility. It begins to decrease once corruption becomes a part of it and the natural balance is lost while individuals lose their idenThe Romanian Law, as well as the legal literature, tity. As a consequence, individuals are more likely defines some aspects of the phenomenon of corto form smaller groups with private interests. ruption as gaining or obtaining some advantage (usually a material one) by making use of a poCharacteristics and juridical practice sition of power, despite the rights of others. The cases of corruption can fall into the category of In specialised literature, we encounter the con‘natural infringements’, as Caesar Beccaria defines cept of petty corruption, or the action each citithem to be, since these infringements of the law zen takes in order to solve the issues which arise can be encountered in present day society, and between him and public or private employees, they can be severely punished (Bogdan, 2014, without affecting the wellbeing of the society. p.413). 34