The “American duel” in the Makarewicz Criminal Code

Abstract

The article presents the term “American duel” which involves an agreement between two people to make the suicide of either of them contingent on certain precisely stated conditions or fortuitous circumstances. Most often, it took the form of a ball draw, and the person who drew the black ball was supposed to commit suicide. Prior to the introduction of the 1932 Criminal Code, the criminalisation of the “American duel” was present in the Hungarian Criminal Code and in the Russian Criminal Code. Although many doctrinal representatives considered the “American duel” to be indirect incitement to suicide, the 1932 Criminal Code created a separate criminal act by virtue of the provision of Article 229. The essence of the “American duel”, as opposed to a duel in its classical form, was not given much attention. It is worth noting that the very term “American duel” is doubly erroneous, as it does not have the usual characteristics of a duel and it is not of American origin.