Corruption and the European Criminal Policy

Abstract

It is concluded that corruption is part of every society, whether it is developed or undeveloped, the question that arises is, what is the difference in these societies regarding level, while the fact of the existence of corruption as a phenomenon does not arise as a question at all. When we have this in mind, it is observed that the fight against this phenomenon must be permanent and without any compromise. Certainly, developed countries have better possibilities in fighting corruption in the sense of experience, methods and technologies that they possess, while developing and undeveloped countries remain to follow the best practices of these countries and greater political will of citizen to fight this phenomenon. It becomes even more complex when we consider that corruption as a phenomenon is very well connected with other crimes and especially it is not viewed separately from organized crime or money laundering, financial crimes or various forms of serious crime. Even more disturbing is the fact that corruption includes almost all spheres of society, including the private and public sectors, civil society. This creates bad opinion that somehow the whole society is corrupt. Forms used to express the corruption, are summarized as follows: provision, promise or giving of bribes to public officials; bribery of foreign officials; demand, accepting or receiving bribe by public officials; influence at work; aim to influence; Abuse of public property; misuse of office / position; bribery in the private sector; obstruction of justice. But this is not limited by all this, since the possibility remains to constantly "modernize" the forms of corruption. Efforts to define corruption as a phenomenon have been, and remain numerous, but we still do not have a single and accepted definition except the efforts to include as many more elements and forms of expression of this phenomenon. Thus, a comprehensive definition is given by the Civil Convention on Corruption, drafted by the Council of Europe. Under this Convention, "corruption" means requesting, offering, giving, receiving, directly or indirectly any bribe or other benefit, which will affect the proper conduct or behavior or the request towards certain behavior of the one who receives bribe, or whoever else benefits from it '. DOI:10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n3p252