-1

Some countries have laws against insults. However the insult is not illegal if it is a direct response to a similar insult or a response to some publicly available information.

Recently a professor at a university described part of the student body as "hitler youth" because they do not agree with his views. Is it an appropriate response to call them a "cunt", "asshole", "fuckhead" or similar?

Improve this question
6
  • Can you give an example of the country and law you are talking about?
    – Eric Nolan
    Commented Apr 12 at 21:49
  • @EricNolan Germany for example. § 185 StGB,
    – jjpenbis
    Commented Apr 12 at 21:51
  • 3
    This is a mixed question of law and linguistics (I'm not saying that this isn't the right SE). Even if I had a firm grasp of the law at issue in Germany, I do not believe that I'd have the German language ability to evaluate how severe or appropriate a Germany judge would find particular German insults to conduct that analysis. Evaluating English language insults would seem to be irrelevant.
    – ohwilleke
    Commented Apr 12 at 22:33
  • 2
    While irrelevant in countires where you can freely insult people, wording matters in those whereyou cannot. For example "you are an asshole" and "you act like an asshole" and "you come across as an asshole" are verying degrees of legality. "You are" is an insult, "You come across" is my personal perception of your actions, and as such probably the truth. So without the actual untranslated wording in question, we cannot even begin to explain it.
    – nvoigt
    Commented Apr 13 at 5:42
  • Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Apr 15 at 8:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

Since there are not enough details to discuss a specific case here, the general option you are talking about is:

Strafgesetzbuch (StGB)

§ 199 Wechselseitig begangene Beleidigungen

Wenn eine Beleidigung auf der Stelle erwidert wird, so kann der Richter beide Beleidiger oder einen derselben für straffrei erklären.

Translated:

Criminal Code (StGB)

§ 199 Mutually committed insults

If an insult is reciprocated on the spot, the judge may declare both insulters or one of them exempt from punishment.

Note the may. It is up to the judge. This law is about situations where two people meet in person (or phone or video chat) and one starts insulting and the other answers immediately. Then a judge may say "you know what, you yelled insults at each other for 20 minutes over the fence, lets call it even and not bother a court with it".

There is no official weighting or scale to be used in this, since it is a "heat of the moment" thing. If you had time to wonder what the legally appropriate counter-insult would be, you are probably no longer "on the spot". The legally appropriate defense is ignoring their insults and suing them.

If they called someone member of the HJ then I'm pretty sure a judge would let it pass when they called them "cunt" in return on the spot. If they waited two days to write in a paper about it, then it is illegal, no matter what the original insult was.

Improve this answer
3
  • We definitely discuss specific cases here.
    – bdb484
    Commented Apr 13 at 12:10
  • True, but there is no specific case to discuss, since we don't know any facts of any case and if the OP said it were their case, we would send them to a lawyer in their juristiction.
    – nvoigt
    Commented Apr 13 at 12:25
  • All correct. But lots of goofballs have been voting to close things as RLSA just because they discuss specific cases, so I just wanted to remind people that that's an invalid basis for closing.
    – bdb484
    Commented Apr 13 at 18:27

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .