Prof. Dr. Gülsün Aygörmez
The concept of accessoriness is not foreign to criminal law. It appears both in the General Part, as the accessoriness of participation, and in the Special Part, as administrative accessoriness in environmental criminal offences. Accessory offences are found not only in the Criminal Code but also in supplementary criminal legislation and the law of administrative offences. Administrative accessoriness plays such an important role in environmental criminal law that it has been described as an integral part of this field. Yet, despite its fundamental importance, its precise contours remain disputed in legal scholarship.
The term accessoriness describes the dependence of one legal norm on another norm to which it refers or relates; in other words, a legal rule is tied to other legal norms. This dependence can take different forms.
Administrative accessoriness is generally understood as the dependence of criminal law on requirements originating in administrative law. Legal scholarship commonly distinguishes three principal forms according to the object of reference: conceptual accessoriness, accessoriness to administrative law, and accessoriness to administrative acts.
References
Hohmann, ZIS 2007, 38 (40); Rogall, GA 1995, 299 (300–302); Kloepfer/Vierhaus, Umweltstrafrecht, pp. 24–25; Otto, JURA 1991, 308 (309); Franzheim/Pfohl, Umweltstrafrecht, p. 6; Busch/Iburg, Umweltstrafrecht, pp. 62 ff.; Maunz/Dürig-GG-Schmid-Aßmann, Art. 103 II.