criminal-law administrative-law bribery
Abuse of power / official capacity / misuse of authority etc financial damage minimum?
<p>A bit of context: Recently the Romanian Justice Ministry signed a executive order to change the penal code decriminalizing "abuse of power" if the damage is less than 200000 RON (Aprox: 50.000 USD / 45000 EURO) everything less than that is subject of labor law.</p>

<p>Is it normal to have minimum financial damage value for such an act to become felony ?</p>

<p>Only thing I could find is Texas code where it becomes a state felony above 2.500 USD (and I'm not sure about that even, because it says "value of thing misused" which for me doesn't equate with damage)</p>

<p>I'm not sure if abuse of power is the correct term (it's a literal translation from Romanian) so here is the definition: 
The act of civil servant, who, in the exercise of his duties, knowingly, does not act or acts incorrectly and thereby causing harm legal interests of a person</p>

<p>Some examples:</p>

<p>Policeman giving you I fine without real cause because he doesn't like you, your race or gender</p>

<p>City council member preferentially selecting streets to be repaired based on his own house location </p>

<p>Mayor hiring his own nephew and allowing him not work at all for the job he was hired to do</p>

<p>Taking or giving bribe is another infraction, different from this one, at least in Romanian Penal Code. </p>

<p>I appreciate any references to similar articles in any penal code, or even suggestions for google keywords.</p>

<p>Colorado has what is called a "<a href="http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/info_center/laws/ArticleXXIX.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">gift ban</a>" which is a prohibition against giving anything of value to any state or local public official as a gift, whether or not there is any attempt to influence the official in his official capacity (subject to certain exceptions, for example, for family members giving normal family gifts). </p>

<p>The threshold for a gift to qualify under the gift ban is $50 (which makes $49.99 a popular price at expensive restaurants near the capital). This was adjusted for inflation in 2011 and in 2015, but inflation has been very low in the last ten years, so it would only be slightly more than $50 now.</p>

<p>I think he means something like this:
<a href="http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.39.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.39.htm</a>
Especially Sec. 39.02. (c) (4) and up</p>
