Våldtäktsbrottet var år 2018 föremål för en omfattande reform. Det avgörande är numera om den sexuella handlingen har genomförts med någon som inte deltar frivilligt. Sedan ett avgörande från HD år 2015 anses våldtäkt inte längre vara ett egenhändigt brott, vilket har betydelse för vem som kan anses vara gärningsman vid våldtäkt. Sexualbrott är även de enda brottstyper där det uttryckligen framgår av lagtexten att fleras deltagande är en kvalifikationsgrund för grovt brott. I uppsatsen analyseras den straffrättsliga rollfördelningen vid en våldtäkt där flera personer deltar eller närvarar.

Sexual offense is the penal law area where the perception of crime has changed most radically over time. The Swedish provision on rape crime in Chapter 6 Section 1 of the Penal Code (Sw. Brottsbalken) has been subject to several changes during the last decades. When the Penal Code came into force in 1965 the provision on rape was reserved for situations where a man had forced a woman into intercourse with violence or serious threat. Since then the provision on rape has been expanded to also include other sexual violations, and the requisites for violence or threat has diminished over the years. In July of 2018 the legislation on sexual offenses in Chapter 6 of the Penal Code was subject to a comprehensive reform. Since then, to be charged with rape a perpetrator no longer needs to have used violence, threat, duress, or to have unduly exploited that the victim was in a particularly vulnerable situation. The decisive circumstance to be charged with rape is nowadays that the sexual act is performed with someone who doesn’t voluntarily participate in the act” (Sw. ”frivilligt deltar”).

In 2015 the Supreme Court (Sw. Högsta domstolen) ruled that a sexual assault against a child can be committed from distance, without physically touching the child. This ruling confirmed that sexual offenses no longer are to be considered crimes that require the perpetrator to have physically performed the sexual act (Sw. egenhändigt brott). In 2018 the legislator stated that all sexual offenses, including rape, can be committed without physical action from the perpetrator. This thesis aims to analyze and discuss the objective conditions for criminal liability for perpetration, co-perpetration and complicity to a rape crime. The question of whom to consider perpetrator, co-perpetrator or accomplice to rape has been somewhat complicated since the recent reform of the rape provision as it is unclear what kind of behaviour will cause liability for complicity to rape, and what kind of behaviour will be non-punishable. It is also unclear in what kind of situation a person can be considered to have ”participated” in such way that it constitutes an aggravating circumstance for rape. All this means that, although the recent reform on sexual offense is laudable in its intent to safeguard sexual integrity, its lack of clarity potentially risks fundamental legal principles.