Criminal Policy and Economics: Manifestations and Limits of Influence and Vulnerability, Business Law in Moroccan Legislation as a Model

Abstract

Economic development in the modern era has led to the emergence of crimes different from traditional crimes that affect the national economy and develop alongside the development of the economic and social life of individuals and societies. This has prompted legislators to enact legal rules regulating these matters. The Moroccan legal system related to trade and business has witnessed a radical transformation over the past decade, represented by the amendment of a set of commercial legal texts and the enactment of new ones, as classical criminal law does not accommodate this number of transformations, especially in the field of business.
This study discusses the extent to which the Moroccan legislator has succeeded in controlling business crimes at the level of concept and specificity, and at the level of criminalization and punishment, and the effectiveness of the legal texts included in the criminal law for business in framing and combating business crimes. It aims to approach this topic and suggest possible solutions to address it. It deals with business crimes looking at criminal legitimacy, privacy, and procedures for research and proof in business crimes.
The study concluded that the technical characteristics of the business field negatively affected the formulation of criminal rules and texts for business, especially with regard to the use of broad terms that carry many legal meanings. There is duplication in the texts regulating the field of business, as well as duplication in the bodies that carry out legislation, and confusion among Moroccan legislators in formulating legal texts related to the field of business due to combining the Latin and Anglo-Saxon schools.
The study recommends the need for the independence of criminal law for business, by creating special provisions within codification independent of the codification of criminal law, the need to limit the arbitrary use of authorization, and the need to reduce the intensity of criminalization in the field of business, by adopting a clear and deliberate policy to limit criminalization, limit punishment, and expand the scope of penalties while being inclusive of all the guarantees prescribed for criminal penalties.