The Ownership and Property in the Civil and Criminal Codes
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Abstract
The article deals with the concepts of ownership and property from the point of civil and criminal law. The necessity to disclose the content of these notions in criminal law appears explaining the property crimes and penalties. Entire chapter of Criminal code is called „Crimes against ownership”, while „property” is used in many definitions as one of the most important legal sign of crime. Up till now the dominating legal concept in criminal law regards the ownership as a law of estate, strictly identifying property with material substance. Such a point of view groundlessly gets narrow the legal protection of property sphere by means of criminal law.
The new civil code of Republic of Lithuania has legitimated the broader concept of ownership defining its objects as „things and other property” (art. 4. 38). Trying to disclose what „other property” means, the author overviews different property theories: material, legal and economical those. The broadest economical property theory recognises that this notion accords all material and immaterial goods, which have pecuniary value and are able to become a part of person’s possession. In the light of the new civil code it is possible to say that some kinds of immaterial property may be the objects of ownership of a person (for example, property rights). At the same time the concept of ownership is still helpless to explain the belonging to a person such property goods as commercial information, prestigious place of trade, qualification of a personal of enterprise, great demand of production, good business reputation and so on. The main statement of the article is the conclusion that property sphere is much broader than the legal ownership relation, so in criminal law the protection must be given to entire property sphere, including ownership, other property rights and interests.
The article also deals with the question of economical content as the essential trait of the notion of property. The author expressed the opinion that economical content of property means its importance to commodity circulation and possibility to estimate it with universal value index - money. The only subjective value given to the good by his owner cannot serve the criterion of regarding one or another thing as property. Such things (for example, personal letter) can be regarded as ownership, nevertheless it cannot pretend be called „property”.
The new civil code of Republic of Lithuania has legitimated the broader concept of ownership defining its objects as „things and other property” (art. 4. 38). Trying to disclose what „other property” means, the author overviews different property theories: material, legal and economical those. The broadest economical property theory recognises that this notion accords all material and immaterial goods, which have pecuniary value and are able to become a part of person’s possession. In the light of the new civil code it is possible to say that some kinds of immaterial property may be the objects of ownership of a person (for example, property rights). At the same time the concept of ownership is still helpless to explain the belonging to a person such property goods as commercial information, prestigious place of trade, qualification of a personal of enterprise, great demand of production, good business reputation and so on. The main statement of the article is the conclusion that property sphere is much broader than the legal ownership relation, so in criminal law the protection must be given to entire property sphere, including ownership, other property rights and interests.
The article also deals with the question of economical content as the essential trait of the notion of property. The author expressed the opinion that economical content of property means its importance to commodity circulation and possibility to estimate it with universal value index - money. The only subjective value given to the good by his owner cannot serve the criterion of regarding one or another thing as property. Such things (for example, personal letter) can be regarded as ownership, nevertheless it cannot pretend be called „property”.
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Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
Please see Copyright and Licence Agreement for further details.
