RESPONSABILITÉ PENALE DES PERSONNES MORALES EN DROIT POSITIF CONGOLAIS
APPROCHE COMPARATIVE EN DROIT BELGE ET FRANÇAIS
Abstract
Is there a criminal liability of legal persons in Congolese positive law?
The decree of January 30, 1940 on the Congolese penal code as amended and supplemented by law n ° 06/018 of July 20, 2006, is silent on this issue. However, case law is divided on this notion. For a long time, only the leaders were prosecuted since the legal person was struck by absolute criminal irresponsibility.
This question which creates a great doctrinal controversy has aroused our attention in the present reflection.
As a result, on the one hand, we have supporters of the criminal irresponsibility of legal persons forming the minimalist tendency based on the theory of fiction, thus highlighting the fictitious character of legal persons in order to finally defend their argument of the 'irresponsibility. For them, the condition of accountability requires that the author have the intelligence and will. This accountability is only possible to natural persons. Because no moral person has a real existence to possess an intellectual faculty, let alone a will.
In addition to the supporters of criminal responsibility: the moral persons are not only fictitious and abstract beings, but have a real existence, which is manifested by concrete structures, of these structures will emerge a will. And this decision of will must be considered as specific to the legal person and distinct from the will of the natural persons who compose them. And if that decision constituted an offense, then the legal person will be held criminally responsible. Proponents of this criminal responsibility form the maximalist tendency and advocate the criminal liability of legal persons on the basis of the theory of the reality of the legal person.
In taking part in the debate in our turn, we have considered caressing the maximalist tendency which, on the basis of the theory of the reality of the legal person, recognizes the criminal liability of legal persons, since they are subjects and rights and obligations. Especially since these legal persons are deemed to commit all kinds of offenses as well as natural persons.
References
I. Textes légaux
• Code pénal français, 111ème édition, Dalloz, France, 2014.
II. Doctrines
• Bernard BOULOC, droit pénal général, 25ème édition, Dalloz, Paris, 2017, n°318.
• Charles DJIMA at alii., La responsabilité pénale des personnes morales en droit pénale comparé : Considération sur le droit congolais, anglais, hollandais, français, belge et chinois, travail pratique L1 Droit, inédit, Université de Kisangani, 2018-2019.
• Emmanuel DREYER, Droit pénal général, 3ème Ed., Rentrée gagnante, Lexis Nexis, 2014.
• Hélène MARTON, les droits des personnes morales de droit privé, LGDJ, coll. « PU Poitiers», 2011, n°22.
• Jean PRADEL, droit pénal général, 16ème édition, CUJAS, Paris, 2006-2007, n°404.
• NGOTO NGOYIE NGALINGI, l’essentiel du droit pénal congolais, Ed. Presses universitaires du Congo, Kinshasa, 2018.
• NYABIRUNGU Mwene SONGA, traité de droit pénal général congolais, 2ème édition, EUA, Kinshasa, 2007.
• P. CUCHE, Précis de droit criminel, Dalloz, 5ème éd. 1934, n°102.
• V. WESTER-OUISSE, Responsabilité pénale des personnes morales et dérives anthropomorphiques, Revue pénitentiaire et droit pénal, 2009, n°1.
• TAGS : Responsabilité pénale du mineur, responsabilité pénale pour autrui, responsabilité pénale des personnes morales.
III. Webographies
• http://www.ocmw-info-cpas.be, Le CPAS (Centre Public d’Action Sociale), qu’est-ce que c’est ?, 2006, n°1.
• http://www.memoireonline.com : Arsène Gérard ESSONO EDOU, la criminalité financière au Cameroun, D.E.S., mémoire online, université de Yaoundé II, 2012.
