Joint perpetration

Participation in crime is one of the oldest areas of concern in criminal law. The doctrine of participation has evolved over time from a method focusing on the act itself to a more abstract approach independent of the types of crime. While there is no universally agreed theory of participation in contemporary doctrine, there is largely a consensus on conceptualizations regarding different categories of responsibility in participation in crime. On the one hand, there are concepts such as direct perpetrator, indirect perpetrator, and joint perpetrator, while on the other hand, there are concepts such as abettor and aider, who are responsible for the crime in dependence with another. Joint perpetration holds a special place among these forms of participation. Indeed, there is even debate about whether joint perpetration is an independent form of perpetration. Some views only consider joint perpetration as situations involving multiple direct perpetrators, while others even accept joint perpetration as mutual indirect perpetration or mutual abetting. The fundamental reason for this diversity of opinions is that in joint perpetration, unlike indirect perpetration especially, acknowledging that multiple individuals participate freely and consciously in the crime and are primarily responsible for the crime, despite not directly committing the act specified in the legal definition of the crime, poses a potential conflict with the principle of nullum crimen sine lege and the principle of personal liability. Indeed, as largely accepted today, those who participate freely and consciously in the commission of a crime in joint perpetration, even if they do not personally commit the act specified in the legal definition of the crime, are originally responsible for the committed crime through the attribution of their actions to each other. In this context, the main aim of the study is to determine the legal basis of joint perpetration as a form of participation that allows for the joint primary liability of multiple individuals who participate freely and consciously in a crime, in accordance with the fundamental principles of criminal law.