The trust principle in criminal law

The principle of trust states that no one is obliged to orientate his/her behavior under the assumption that third parties will act unlawfully. The expectation that people will act following the law will be protected by legal order unless there are concrete indications to the contrary. The principle of trust emerged for the first time in the context of traffic law during the in Germany and Austria. In the last decades, its application expanded substantially to other fields and countries. Indeed, the trust principle can be applied in many areas of interaction among people, such as medical law, construction law, and product liability. The principle of trust, applied in negligence crimes, is used to determine and concretize objective duty of care. To assume that others will comply with the legal norms cannot be defined as a contradiction of obligations. However, the principle of trust does not have an unlimited field of application and is subject to certain limitations. For example, it does not apply to persons who may not be able to comply with the legal rules, such as children and the elderly. Furthermore, the trust principle does not apply in cases with concrete indications that others are acting contrary to the law but with an obligation of control and supervision. In this case, the person is under the obligation to take into account that others may act unlawfully.