Honduran Penal Code

Disclaimer

All the below has been written by a not-lawyer and is not legal advice. Before committing to business plans that require the below to be accurate, talk to an actual expert.

Contents

Full text is available here. I do not know of an English translation.

Libro I: Procedural Rules

Mostly lays out basic rules about how the penal code works. These are similar to other jurisdictions:

  • No punishment for committing an act that wasn’t a crime at the time (no ex-post-facto punishment).
  • Honduras does not have a death penalty, though it does have life imprisonment.
  • Time served provisionally (during a trial?) is counted towards the total time served after conviction.
  • Attempted crimes are punishable by 3/4 of the penalty of a successful attempt for a complete but failed attempt, or 2/3 for an incomplete attempt.
  • A penalty of 3 years or less in prison can be replaced with expulsion from the country for 3x that duration if you are a foreigner with no prior criminal convictions and unless the government specifically decides you should be imprisoned instead.
  • Legal persons (corporations) can be criminally liable.
  • A criminal conviction can lead to civil liability towards the victim.
  • Fines are specified in days, which scale between 20 HDL/day and 5000 HDL/day depending on income.

Libro II: Special Section

Despite its name it is by far the longest section.

Título I: Crimes against the international community

Prohibitions on a variety of big-ticket items:

  • Crimes against humanity
  • Genocide
  • War Crimes
  • Aggression (in the sense of invading a country without cause).
  • Violating diplomatic immunity, harming a head of state or other person protected by treaties.
  • Making or possessing weapons of mass destruction.
  • Piracy.
  • Illegal Organ Trafficking.
  • Genetic manipulation and cloning:
    • Any purpose that isn’t the curing of illness can seemingly run afoul of this and while there is an exemption for in-vitro fertilization with consent it is unclear how much leeway that affords. Open question, can running CRISPR on an IVF embryo to increase its expected height, with the consent of the parents, run afoul of this law?

Título II: Crimes against collective security

  • Crimes relating to radiation (intentional irradiation, not following proper standards, hiding contamination after the fact).
  • Intentionally causing a fire, flood, or interfering with facilities meant to protect against disasters.
  • Obstructing/damaging transportation routes and services in a way that harms people.

Título III: Crimes against life, bodily integrity, and health

  • Homicide/murder/etc.
    • Abortion falls under this bucket, though it carries specific penalties.
    • Helping someone commit suicide also carries criminal penalties.
  • Causing injury to another.

Título IV: Crimes against the duty to help

  • Failing to render assistance to someone in serious danger when such help would not put you in danger.
  • Failing to provide health care when obliged to do so (by some other law?) and the refusal puts the person’s health in serious risk.
  • Failing to stop or report a crime that puts someone in serious danger, when doing so would not put you in danger.

Título V: Violence against women

Under certain circumstances, violent crimes carry additional penalties if being targeted against women.

Título VI: Discrimination against someone exercising their rights

  • Discriminating in the provision of a public service.
  • Discriminating in the provision of a private service to which the recipient is entitled.
  • Advocating discrimination against people in public.
  • Harming the dignity of people through expressions that involve humiliation, contempt or discredit.

Título VII: Crimes against dignity and honor

  • Degrading treatment, forced confession, torture.
  • Human trafficking and slavery.
  • Using minors/elderly as beggars.
  • Artificial insemination/medical experimentation without consent.
  • Abandoning a minor or other person.
  • Insults and Slander:
    • This includes a special variant covering insults and slander aimed at regulated banks.
    • Repeating/publishing such also makes you liable, though AFAICT the entity on which such claims are made is only responsible at the civil level.
    • Penalties are increased for doing these things through social media/internet as opposed to legacy media.

Título VIII: Crimes against liberty

  • False imprisonment.
  • Kidnapping.
  • Coercion and threats.
  • Blackmail.
  • Forced displacement.

Título IX: Crimes against sexual freedom

  • Rape, etc.
  • Sexual harassment.
  • Pimping and child pornography.
  • Exhibitionism.
  • Distributing pornography to minors.

Título X: Crimes against home safety and privacy

  • Home invasion
  • Wiretapping/stealing documents.
  • Disclosing personal secrets in violation of professional confidentiality.

Título XI: Crimes against familial relations.

  • Poligamy.
  • Officiating/authorizing an invalid marriage.
  • Fraudulent adoptions, swapping children at birth.
  • Not returning a minor/other incapacitated person to their legal guardians after being put in charge of them.
  • Encouraging a minor to run away from home.
  • Not paying alimony, child support, or fulfilling other legal obligations regarding children/spouses.
  • Spousal/familial abuse.

Título XII: Crimes against worker’s rights

  • Failing to provide necessary health-and-safety measures required for workers to carry out their work.
  • Suppressing recognized labor rights.
  • Harassing a subordinate.
  • Discrimination in employment.
  • Human trafficking of workers.

Título XIV: Crimes against public health

  • Selling medicines which lack the necessary authorization required by law.
  • Misleadingly selling a food or medical product as if it was another.
  • Helping in the doping of athletes.
  • Sales of poisonous substances without authorization or in violation of regulations.
  • Forging documentation relating to medical products.
  • Adulterating food and water.
  • Selling unauthorized/contaminated plant or animal products.
  • Spreading of an infectious disease.
    • This includes violating health measures put in place by the “competent authorities”. Does this effectively mean all COVID-related health measures by the national government apply in Próspera?
  • Growing/processing/transporting/selling toxic drugs, narcotics, or psychotropic substances or their precursors, or possessing them for such purposes. The list of prohibited substances.

Título XV: Crimes against road safety

  • Reckless/Drunk driving.

Título XVI: Crimes against the environment

  • Violating environmental law through pollution in a way that endangers the ecosystem.
  • Violating environmental law through resource extraction in a way that endangers the ecosystem.
  • Starting a forest fire affecting a protected area.
  • Releasing invasive species/pests/diseases into the environment.
  • Harming/captuing endangered species.

Título XVII: Crimes against animal welfare

  • Animal abuse
  • Animal abandonment.

Título XVIII: Urban Crimes

  • Up to 5 years in jail for building housing in a rural area in which development is not allowed, among other places.
    • And you thought US NIMBYs were bad!

Título XIX: Crimes against cultural heritage

  • Dealing in good that are part of the national heritage in violation of the applicable regulations.
  • Damaging or altering a protected historical building in violation of the applicable regulations.
  • Extracting from archeological sites in violation of regulations.

Título XX: Crimes against property

  • Theft.
  • Robbery.
  • Fraud.
  • Extortion.
  • Usurpation of real estate.
  • Altering the markers for the limits of a real estate lot.
  • Diverting a source of water without permission.
  • Vandalism.
  • Usury: Defined as interest more than 6 percentage points greater than a benchmark established by the “Sistema Financiero Nacional”
    • This seems like it’d apply in Próspera given that this is the first penal code section that names a specific regulator?
  • Unauthorized lotteries and games of chance.

Título XXI: Crimes against intellectual and industrial property

  • Copyright infringement can carry criminal charges.
  • So does circumvention of copy-protection, much like in the DMCA.
  • Knowingly infringing a patent or trademark can carry a jail sentence.
  • Disclosing trace secrets also can carry a penalty.

Título XXII: Security of computer systems and networks

  • Unauthorized access to a computer.
  • Unauthorized damage to computer systems or data.
  • Sale of software or devices intended for illicit access to computers/networks.
  • Identity fraud.

Título XXIII: Crimes against the socioeconomic order

  • Fraudulent Bankruptcy.
  • Hiding goods from creditors.
  • Article 412 seems to make it illegal to reduce production in order to get higher prices?
  • Insider trading and spreading false financial information to manipulate prices.
  • Anti-competitive agreements can be illegal.
  • Using influence to get an undue advantage?
  • Corruption in sports.
  • Falsifying financial information.
  • Abusing a majority position in a company that has shared ownership.
  • Interfering with a regulatory body.

Título XXIV: Smuggling and crimes against the treasury and social security

  • Includes falsified accounting.

Título XXV: Money Laundering

  • Also receiving the proceeds of criminal activity.

Título XXVI: Crimes against the public trust

  • Counterfeiting of money.
  • Counterfeiting of stamps.
  • Counterfeiting of documents.
  • Counterfeiting/trade of identity documents.
  • Counterfeiting of financial instruments (travelers’ checks, credit cards).
  • Identity theft (nonelectronic?)
  • Impersonating a public servant.
  • Pretending to hold a title you don’t have.

Título XXVII: Crimes against the public administration

  • Embezzlement of public funds.
  • Fraud and illegal exaction as a public employee.
  • Gaining too much assets without explanation during/shortly after working as a public employee without a reasonable explanation for it.
  • Granting contracts improperly through your power as a public employee.
  • Acting as an advisor to regulated entities while being their regulator outside of the ways permitted by law.
  • Using privileged information obtained through public employment to enrich yourself or a third party.
  • Using position of public trust/power to solicit sexual favors.
  • Influence peddling.
  • Accepting or offering a bribe.
  • Acting arbitrarily in a knowingly unjust manner in an official role.
  • Abuse of authority.
  • Improperly appointing someone to an office.
  • Overstaying a term of office.
  • Destroying public documents.
  • Claiming to be a public official when you aren’t.

Título XXVIII: Crimes against the administration of justice

  • Concealing a crime.
  • Rendering an unjust judgment knowingly as a judge.
  • Refusing to fulfill role as judge without justification.
  • Vigilantism.
  • False testimony.
  • Witness intimidation.
  • Revealing the identity of a protected witness.
  • Providing communication services without requiring identification (if legislation requires this).
  • Coercing a judge.
  • Bribing a witness.
  • Failing to appear before the court.
  • Escaping from jail.
  • Helping a prisoner escape while in custody of them.
  • Knowingly making false accusations.
  • Faking a crime, such that the authorities will find themselves having to investigate it.
  • Helping the opposite side of a court case while being the lawyer for one side.

Título XXIX: Crimes against the constitution

  • Rebellion.
  • Not opposing a rebellion as a public servant when that’s part of your role.
  • Sedition, however it is defined as taking up arms to threaten the government into specific action/inaction, not speech supporting rebellion.
  • Desecrating national symbols.
  • Kidnapping or killing heads of state (local or foreign).
  • Violently invading any of the core government buildings to disrupt their function while they are in session.
  • Interfering with elections.
  • Forging of any electoral documents from the census down to ID cards.
  • Damaging electoral advertising.
  • Interfering with the fundamental rights of people by abusing official powers.
  • Religious vandalism.
  • Desecrating graves and corpses.
  • Staging a demonstration for the purpose of committing a crime, or with armed participants.
  • Being part of a criminal organization.

Título XXX: Crimes against state security and territorial integrity

  • Treason, defined as taking arms against the state or rendering aid to those who do, or convincing people to side against the state during a conflict.
  • Getting a foreign power to declare war on Honduras.
  • Vandalizing or altering the indicators of the borders of the country.
  • Drawing up plans of military installations without authorization.
  • Declaring war or peace without following the rules laid out in the constitution.
  • Doing any of these things against an allied country.
  • Espionage.
  • Inciting war with Honduras (regardless of success).
  • Recruiting soldiers or mercenaries to serve a foreign nation or undermine the state.
  • Violating a truce.
  • Breaching a defense-related contract during a war.
  • Sabotage of anything useful for defense.

Título XXXI: Crimes against public order

  • Attacking public servants.
  • Disobeying a public servant in the exercise of their function.
  • Causing public disorder, through violence or intimidation.
  • Discharging a firearm at a crowd or in a crowded place.
  • Obstructing emergency vehicles (during a legal or illegal protest).
  • Abusing emergency calls.
  • Building airstrips or docks without authorization and for criminal purposes.
  • Smuggling communication devices into prison.
  • Possession of firearms without a license.
  • Manufacturing and sale of firearms without authorization.

Título XXXII: Terrorism

  • Being part of a terrorist group or financing/collaborating with one (a terrorist group being defined as group that commits crimes to seriously subvert the constitutional order or terrorize at least part of the population).
  • Cyberterrorism (basically unauthorized computer access to state computers in the service of terroristic goals).

Libro III: Regulation of offenses (?)

Seems it’s a misdemeanor-like category of lesser crimes.

Título I: Procedural rules

None of the crimes in this Libro are punishable for mere attempt, or being a collaborator (only the author of the crime can be charged).

Título II: Offenses against people

  • Causing injury through:
    • Mild neglect.
    • Any non-criminal behavior.
  • Hitting someone without injuring them.
  • Mild threats, coercion, insults, harassment that isn’t otherwise a crime.

All these are only to be prosecuted at the victim’s request.

Título III: Offenses against property

  • Theft under 5,000 HDL.
  • Vandalism under 5,000 HDL.
  • Trespassing of marked land or in order to access fruit/fish/hunt/graze cattle without permission.

Título IV: Offenses against the general interest of the population

  • Smuggling that is otherwise non criminal and under 50,000 HDL.
  • Burning trash or plant matter in violation of ordinances.
  • Abandoning potentially dangerous objects.
  • Letting dangerous animals loose.

Título V: Offenses against public order

  • Disturbing public order.
  • Mild disobedience of public servants in the exercise of their public functions.

Extra stuff

There’s some additional grab bag stuff afterwards but it doesn’t seem relevant at first glance.