The falsification of medicines in Africa from the economic criminal law

Abstract

The present study on the falsification of medicines in Africa, with special attention to adulterated treatments to treat HIV, is related to economic criminal law in that state interventionism in the economy is a reality that has the need to “protect the interests "ethical-social principles perfectly recognized in every modern state", without forgetting that it is linked to corruption and the fight against that problem. 

It is important to note that Economic Criminal Law has its origins at the end of the 19th century and is consolidated in the 20th. It begins politically with the change from the agrarian system to the industrial system, where ideas of an intervening state in the economy begin to be generated, controlling the production, distribution and consumption of goods on a large scale as a consequence of the industrial system. Legally, it has been expressed that its birth occurred with the Weimar Constitution, being the first constitution to speak about economic relevance and generate provisions of an economic nature, an economic constitutional law that is understood as “the set of basic norms intended to provide the legal framework fundamental for the structure and functioning of economic activity or, in other words, for the order and economic process.” 

The main characteristics that distinguish economic criminal law are of accessory prevalence in that “the legislation that receives it is mostly scattered in laws of other legal branches”, such is the case of the tax code or health code. In addition to its dynamic and variable characteristic, understanding that legal modifications of codes that regulate social behavior follow the pace of social transformation, seeking to punish intolerable acts, these essential characteristics of economic criminal law are related to the falsification of medicines and treatment. of HIV/AIDS, in the sense that although there are regulations on the falsification of medicines in the Ecuadorian Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code, this is art. 217, it is no less true that since this type of criminal offense exists, we must refer to the code and regulations on the production of medicines than the health code, even to know and understand what falsification entails, fulfilling the characteristic of accessory prevalence; On the topic of dynamics and variables, it is easy to understand the social rejection that counterfeit medicines produce and even more so regarding a chronic and only controllable disease, such as HIV/AIDS. Why there exists in our regulated COIP that behavior even with aggravations on this type of actions, recognizing its dynamics is this topic.