Recharacterisation

Recharacterisation in law (and sometimes in accountancy) means the treatment of a certain course of conduct in a different manner to which the participants describe it.

The term is most important in the penal law of Continental legal systems. In some civil law countries, judges are empowered to "recharacterise the facts" of a case to make the charges more closely align with the evidence. In these systems, the legal charges contained in the indictment are only suggestions from the public prosecutor to the court. The judge may, if it becomes clear that the facts actually support different or additional charges, change the legal characterisation of those facts.