Legal Provisions for the Night Circumstance of the Crime of Theft

Abstract

There is no doubt that theft[1] stands to be of the natural crimes for which no criminal law applicable at any state of the world has denied its criminalization. Further, theft has been punished not only in the current era but has been criminalized on all the old legislations for which it has been a punished crime in all the places and at all the times.

In fact, the Jordanian legislator approached the provisions of the theft crime through the first chapter titled (Grabbing the Property of Others) in the eleventh section (the Crimes Committed on Properties) of the second part (Crimes) of the Penal Code No. 16, 1960 when articles 399-413 have been dedicated for the crime of theft.Actually, and by looking through the said provisions, we find that the Jordanian legislator has not designed one punishment for the crime of theft which differs according to the circumstances associated with the said crime. In fact, the circumstances that have an impact on the punishment of the theft crime and its severity perpetrating the crime at night while the circumstance of night has been stated in three locations: in the crime of article 400 of the Penal Code in which the night is considered of the circumstances provided by the legislator to apply the provision. Further, and in article 402 Penal, yet the night stands to be of the circumstances that stress the penalty of robbing at the public road. In addition, and in article 406, yet the circumstance of the night stands solely to be a cause for applying it by which the punishment of theft shall become sentencing to jail from one to three years.Actually, stressing the punishment of theft committed at night is not a new issue as the old laws (e.g. the Romanian Law) used to consider it as a stressed circumstance for the crime and that the penalty of the theft perpetrator committed at night may reach execution[2].In fact, this paper has been dedicated for stating at the legal provisions concerned with the night circumstance and its applications at the judiciary by stating at the definition of this circumstance, its impact, cause, nature and manner of proving it.

[1] The Jordanian legislator defined the theft in article 399 of the Penal Code as being (taken the movable property of others coercively)

[2] Subject matter considered: Dr. Fayez Mohammad Hussein, the Circumstances Affecting the Theft Punishment According to the Old legislations, Arab Renaissance House, Cairo, 2002, P. 170 and thereafter and P. 179 and thereafter.