| The principle of self-responsibility in criminal law means that the perpetrator is not responsible for the damage of the victim when the latter, despite being aware of risks, goes into danger voluntarily. However, this does not indicate that the rescuer, with full consciousness of the related risks, is always responsible for his actions when he tries to save the interests of others and causes damage to himself. There are three situations in which the rescuer should not be responsible for the occurrence of damage.First of all, if the rescuer has legal obligations of rescue, then the perpetrator is responsible for the damage of the rescuer. In this case, the rescuer is forced by the lawmaker to save the interests of others which would be harmed by the perpetrator. He has no other choice but to take the action to protect others. In this sense, the rescuer does not accept the risk of rescue voluntarily and the principle of self-responsibility can therefore not be applied to him. The range of legal obligations should be ex ante determined through an “interests-risk balance” in concrete cases based on the sort of obligations and the theory of probability of anticipation. Secondly, the principle of self-responsibility is not applicable to the rescuer either, if the rescue takes place with the intention to protect the interests of others which are more valuable than the loss of the rescuer. This is a conclusion from the comparison with the defense of necessity. Lastly, the rescuer should also not be responsible for the occurrence of damage if he tries to defend his family members from death, heavy injury or deprivation of freedom. Because in this situation the rescuer is, as a result of lacking free will, not responsible for his decision.In other cases, the principle of self-responsibility should be applied. That means the rescuer accepts the risks of rescue voluntarily and is therefore responsible for his damage. On the other side, the perpetrator, who commits an illegal act and thereby puts the interests of others in danger, is no longer liable for the damage of the rescuer. According to the conclusion above, the principle of self-responsibility is applicable to the firefighter in the CCTV fire case who gave under extremely dangerous situation his respirator to the person entrapped in the fire and therefore died from gas poisoning. |
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