Elisabeth Margue, Luxembourg’s Minister of Justice;
Credit: ©SIP / Claude Piscitelli
On Thursday 18 July 2024, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Justice presented to the members of the Chamber of Deputies’ (Luxembourg’s Parliament) Justice Committee presented the main provisions of the bill marking the first phase of the reform to modernise the Criminal Code.
The bill repeals a certain number of articles that have become obsolete as well as several contraventions, including that concerning simple begging, from the Criminal Code. At the same time, it will explicitly introduce the offence of aggressive begging into the Code.
The reform provides for the abolition of the offence of simple begging as well as that of vagrancy, which targeted the very condition of the person and not their behaviour. "As the discussions of the last few weeks and months have shown, there has been a need for clarification regarding 'simple begging' for many years. With the new bill, we are finally providing this clarity by removing Article 563 point 6 of the Criminal Code," stressed Elisabeth Margue, Luxembourg’s Minister of Justice.
"The discussions also revealed a consensus that aggressive begging - just like other aggressive behaviour - has no place in our society and must be repressed," continued Minister Margue. With the new Article 342, aggressive begging is now explicitly enshrined as an offence in the Criminal Code. The bill proposes not to distinguish between physical and verbal aggression. The following behaviours, adopted towards the person solicited for the delivery of funds, valuables or property, could be considered aggressive solicitations: chasing the person after he or she has expressed his or her refusal, grabbing or touching the person, shouting at the person, preventing or obstructing the closing of the entrance door of a residential building where the solicitation is being carried out.
The next steps will reportedly consist of analysing and, if necessary, adapting the penalty rates provided for in the Criminal Code for different offences to ensure their uniformity and coherence.
Subsequently, decisions will be made on which terms need updating and which new offences should be added to the Criminal Code.
