Bribery
Question:
What are the limits of bribery? Is every amount of money I give to an employee or a person who performs a service considered bribery?
Answer:
Bribery is to pay a price in order to obtain something that you do not deserve, through an unlawful way, whether what you paid was cash or tangible items.
If the thing you obtain is your legal right, but the one who holds authority insists on taking something from you, otherwise depriving you of what you deserve, and you give it to him, then this is a form of extortion on his part. That is, it is a crime of extortion, or theft by coercion, not bribery.
But if the person who will carry out the matter is a poor person, and he did not ask you for anything, but you of your own accord gave him something, then that is from you an act of compassion or (a gratuity), as long as the matter that you will obtain is your legal right.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Forty-Four) 4-11-1977
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