Federal Cabinet partially reverses tougher penalties for child pornography

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Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP).

Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa

The federal government is partially reversing the tightening of penalties for the possession and distribution of child pornography that came into force in 2021. The minimum sentences should be reduced from one year to three or six months, according to the draft law, which was seen by the AFP news agency. With the new version, the federal government is responding to corresponding demands from law enforcement authorities and courts. The German Association of Judges therefore welcomed the cabinet decision.

The background to this is that the regulation, which has been in force since 2021, also made it possible to punish people who had not committed anything worthy of punishment - for example people who had the material in order to report it and clarify it. "In particular, people who have received such material unintentionally - for example as part of a Whatsapp parents group - face a minimum prison sentence of one year," explained Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP).

“The same applies, for example, in the case of teachers who discovered child pornographic material on students’ cell phones and forwarded it to alert affected parents,” Buschmann continued. In these cases, the accused clearly did not act out of their own sexual interest, but rather to stop, prevent or inform about an act, according to the Federal Ministry of Justice's submission.

Large proportion of young perpetrators

According to the draft law, the classification as a misdemeanor - rather than a crime - is also urgently needed in order to be able to respond appropriately and with the necessary flexibility to the large proportion of young perpetrators. As a rule, they acted “out of a drive that is typical of a young person’s level of development, such as inexperience, curiosity, a thirst for adventure or a desire to impress.”

After the offense was made more stringent in 2021, the federal government is now responding with the new version to criticism from lawyers and judges who no longer saw the proportionality of the punishment in individual cases. “It is high time for the federal government to take up the calls for help from the judiciary and those affected and correct the well-intentioned but poorly made tightening of penalties against child pornography from 2021,” said the German Association of Judges in response to the cabinet decision.

Since 2021, the judiciary has had to “prosecute a large number of cases that do not actually belong in criminal courts,” explained the Association of Judges. This ties up a lot of staff in the public prosecutor's offices and criminal courts.

According to information from the Federal Ministry of Justice, the main goal of the law passed at the time to combat the distribution, acquisition and possession of so-called child pornography - the significant increase in penalties - is not affected by the recent reform of the corresponding paragraph of the Criminal Code.

kim/dpa/AFP