The Crime of Customs Smuggling in Iraqi Legislation

Abstract

There are some behavioral patterns that differ from one society to another, and also differ according to the stage that that society is going through. The legislator decides to criminalize them and regulate them in laws of their own, especially since the penal code may contain a large number of crimes, and these laws do not follow the penal laws, but rather are independent of them. From a legislative perspective, if there is ambiguity or deficiency in these special laws, the judge can refer to the general laws, and this applies to the subject of this study. Whereas the act of smuggling is intended to be the process of bringing goods into the country or taking them out of it in violation of the provisions of the law without paying customs taxes, duties or other taxes or contrary to the prohibition and restriction provisions contained in the law. Smuggling, according to the previous description, has two parts, one of which is economic and social, represented by the introduction Goods or taking them out of the country in violation of the restriction and prohibition provisions contained in the law, and another with a financial aspect, which is non-payment of legal fees or taxes. The legislator chooses a specific way to achieve this goal in a way that is consistent with the state’s policy in achieving the goals required by the process of preserving the social, political, economic, health, security, and any other foundations. According to the above, the subject of the study had to be divided into two chapters; In the first chapter, we will try to address: clarifying the concept of the crime of customs smuggling in two sections, the first of which we devote to: explaining the nature of the crime of customs smuggling in two requirements: the first requirement, in which we will discuss the definition of the crime and its place in the legal system, and as for the second requirement, we will discuss the types of customs smuggling. As for the second section: we will discuss the elements of the crime in two sections. The first will discuss the physical element of the crime of customs smuggling, while we will devote the second to the moral element of that crime. As for the second chapter: its title is the provisions of the crime of customs smuggling, we divide it into two sections. The first section: in which we discuss the criminal dispute for the crime of customs smuggling, and it will be divided into two requirements. The first will discuss the authority competent to investigate the crime that is the subject of the study. As for the second requirement, it will be dedicated to the customs court and the ruling issued in the crime. In the second section, we discuss the punishment of the crime, which will be divided into two requirements. The first requirement is devoted to corporal punishment for the perpetrator of the crime, and the second requirement is devoted to financial punishment.