Evaluating the Crime of Insult in the Context of Criminal Intent and Conditions of Punishability

In Turkish Criminal Law, the main article about the crime of insult is the Article 125 of Turkish Penal Code. When defining the offense in the related article, the legislator stipulated that the insult in the presence of the victim and the insult in the absence of the victim should be punished in the same way. The legal characteristic of the required condition -which is the act should be committed in the presence of at least three further people- for being culpable for an insult made in the absence of the victim, is controver-sial. The difference between considering the required condition to be culpable for an insult made in the absence of the victim in the scope of the element of intention and considering it in the scope of objective conditions of punishability is directly affects the punishability of the perpetrator. In this case, it is a legal obligation that the legal characteristic of this required condition to be put forward accurately. Moreover, if the doctrine and the Court of Cassation decisions are evaluated together, this clearly shows that it is necessary to reconsider existing legal regulations. Article 186 of the German Penal Code is enlightening about this issue.