“Slander is just as dangerous a weapon as a firearm.”
Anton Rubinstein
As we get older, we often come to regret how we behaved in our youth — some thoughtless actions, certainly, but also the time and resources we squandered instead of putting them to good use. “If only youth knew, if only old age could” is a fitting saying about the impossibility of changing the past, and about everything having its own time. Yes, each of us is destined to walk our own path and pick up a fair share of bruises along the way. It’s a good thing when the mistakes of youth can, with more or less effort, be corrected. It’s worse when such mistakes lead to consequences that only have to be dealt with much later, in adulthood.
Unfortunately, young people often gain their bitter life experience by entering into relationships too early. We all know, of course, that love in one’s youth can work wonders — it is such a sincere, bright, tender, trembling feeling, yet at the same time extremely fragile. Opinions on young love vary widely: some believe first love is the truest and comes only in youth; others insist categorically that love at such a young age doesn’t really exist at all. Either way, young love cannot be denied — world literature and art alike celebrate the experience of first love, and almost every adult carries a carefully guarded memory of their first infatuation. Unfortunately, such a beautiful feeling has its darker side too. Often, young people — including well-educated and well-read ones — do not fully grasp the consequences their thoughtless actions can lead to. Some of the most serious consequences of youthful mistakes involving intimate relationships stem from spontaneous physical relationships. One unwanted result can be an unplanned pregnancy — and, sadly, in most such cases, it is the young woman who is left to deal with the consequences of a moment’s passion on her own. It is worse still when intimacy between two young people occurs without one of them consenting, at which point what would otherwise be a “mistake of youth” crosses into acts carrying criminal liability. Under §177(1) of the German Criminal Code (German: Strafgesetzbuch, StGB), sexual assault carries a penalty of imprisonment ranging from one to ten years.
Our law firm’s practice covers all manner of cases — from one-off consultations on immigration or civil-law matters to complex cases in which our clients face criminal liability. In this article, we describe one such case — the kind you couldn’t make up if you tried.
Client Story: Young Love and an Early Pregnancy
A young woman once came to us for legal help — let’s call her Anastasia. She had come to us because criminal proceedings had been opened against her under §186 of the German Criminal Code — defamation (German: Üble Nachrede, §186 StGB). If found guilty, Anastasia faced a substantial fine or up to one year’s imprisonment. As in all our other cases, our lawyer specializing in criminal matters listened carefully to our client and asked her to describe every detail of what had happened.
As Anastasia told us during our first consultation, this sad story began back in her youth. Having just started university, she fell head over heels in love with a young man named Andrey, who was studying at the same university, in his third year. It seemed, at first, that everything had fallen into place — Andrey returned her feelings, and a romance literally “caught fire” between the two young people. At first they were practically inseparable, convinced their feelings would last forever and that nothing and no one could ever come between them. As far as Anastasia’s own idea of the relationship went, it felt something deeply romantic — walks under the moonlight, conversations about lofty things, the touch of hands… Andrey, like many young men his age, believed that the true measure of “manliness” was the ability to “convince” a girl to be intimate with him, even by somewhat forceful means. It is now quite difficult to establish whether our client consented or was coerced, but the ill-fated young couple did become intimate — a first for the young woman.
Things escalated from there — the short-lived romance resulted in an unexpected pregnancy for the then eighteen-year-old. Needless to say, Andrey was not prepared for this turn of events. At first he insisted on terminating the “accidental” pregnancy, and once it became clear it was already too late for that, he “disappeared into the shadows” and stopped responding altogether. Fortunately, Anastasia was not left to face the situation alone — her loving parents and older sister did everything they could to help Nastya carry the pregnancy to term and give birth to a healthy child. In the meantime, she had to temporarily put her university studies on hold. Although her parents actively helped support their daughter and grandchild, they could not provide for them entirely, so our future client took a low-paying job when her baby was only six months old, in order to support her newly formed small family.
A Rape Complaint and a Counter-Accusation of Defamation
Other people’s children grow up fast. By the time the boy turned six and needed to be prepared for school, Anastasia decided to approach the child’s father with a demand for child support. Andrey, while not denying his paternity, was unwilling to provide financial support, citing the fact that he had no steady job and was getting by on occasional earnings. Anastasia responded decisively — she filed a claim in court for child support, which was granted, and also filed a police report about a rape that had allegedly occurred earlier. Some time later, for lack of sufficient evidence that the young man had committed the offense, the rape case was closed.
The story, however, did not end there. Less than a month after the criminal case against Andrey was closed, Anastasia received a counter-complaint and a summons to be questioned in connection with a criminal case opened against her. Now our client was the one accused of defamation, an offense punishable under §186 of the German Criminal Code.
The Lawyer’s Work: A Case Being Closed Doesn’t Mean a False Accusation
The woman came to our law firm because she needed qualified legal help. Requesting the case file from the public prosecutor’s office, our firm’s lawyer carefully examined whether the complainant had had sound grounds to accuse our client of defamation — that is, of knowingly spreading false, damaging information, or false statements harming another person’s honor and dignity or undermining their reputation. The lawyer’s primary task in representing our client’s interests was to gather comprehensive evidence and submit it to the public prosecutor’s office to conclusively demonstrate that, when filing the rape complaint, our client had genuinely believed she had been subjected to sexual assault. In other words, in filing her complaint, she had not intended to defame the father of her child, but had genuinely been defending her own rights and legitimate interests.
Having reviewed our client’s statement, her former boyfriend’s statement, and the witness testimony contained in the case file, our firm’s lawyer reached the following conclusion: the criminal case against Andrey contained fairly convincing evidence that the young woman’s claim of having been coerced into intimacy could well have been true. On the one hand, then, the rape case lacked sufficiently conclusive evidence that the offense had actually occurred. On the other hand, the available case materials also did not support the conclusion that knowingly false statements harming Andrey’s honor and dignity had been made against him. Therefore, the fact that the rape case had been closed for lack of sufficient evidence did not mean that the criminal case against the young man had been brought with the intent to present false information about him.
Outcome: Case Closed
All of these arguments were set out by our firm’s lawyer, defending our client’s interests, in a petition submitted to the public prosecutor’s office together with the corresponding set of evidence. Our firm’s lawyer petitioned for the criminal case against the woman to be discontinued for lack of sufficient grounds, under §170 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure (German: Strafprozessordnung, abbreviated StPO). Just as we had rightly expected, we soon received the good news that our petition had been granted and the case closed. Needless to say, Anastasia felt as though a huge weight had literally been lifted off her fragile shoulders.
Conclusion
We wish her, as we do every parent raising children, strength, wisdom, and patience in this weighty responsibility. It is well known that how a child is raised within the family lays the foundation for the rest of their life. Let’s all communicate more with our children and try to earn their trust — it helps prevent unpleasant surprises down the road. And if something has already happened and you need legal help or a legal consultation, we invite you to come to us, where we will listen, thoroughly examine your situation, and help you find the best way forward.
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