Criminal Law

Taking as its starting point Miri Gur-Arye’s critical discussion of a legal duty to report crime, this paper sketches an idealising conception of a democratic republic whose citizens could be expected to recognise a civic responsibility to report crime, in order to assist the enterprise of a criminal law that is their common law. After explaining why they should recognise such a responsibility, what its scope should be, and how it should be exercised, and noting that that civic responsibility must (...) include a responsibility to report one’s own crimes; it discusses whether that civic responsibility could ground at least a limited legal duty to report certain types of crime. It then turns to the question of whether a civic responsibility to assist the criminal law’s enterprise of bringing wrongdoers to account could include a responsibility to arrest suspected or known offenders if the police cannot or will not do so—a responsibility to make a citizen’s arrest, and the legal power to discharge that responsibility: how far should citizens feel entitled, or duty-bound, thus to ‘take the law into their own hands’? (shrink)

According to a common view, criminal law should be structured in a way that allocates the conditions of criminal liability to different types of legal rules, given the content of the condition and the nature of the rule. This view classifies some conditions as elements of offenses and others as (part of) justificatory defenses or of excusatory defenses. While this view is attractive, I argue that it should be rejected, since it is incompatible with two plausible propositions about legal rules. (...) The first is that foundational reasons are not concerned with the structure of the law as such. The second is that legal rules should be constructed in a way that reflects (the balance of) all the applicable reasons and not just some of them. (shrink)

In whose voice does the criminal law speak, and why does it matter? Miriam Gur-Arye argues that the answer to the first question depends on the kind of duty violated by the crime at issue. In some cases (say, election fraud or tax evasion), the criminal law speaks in the voice of the polity—but in other cases (say, murder or rape), it speaks in the voice of human beings. Or so argues Gur-Ayre. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a lot depends on what (...) one means by the voice of the criminal law. In this paper, I defend two related arguments. First, the criminal law typically claims to speak in the voice of the polity, even if, in practice, it often fails to do so. Second, where the criminal law does speak in the voice of the polity, its doing so can contribute to its own justification. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the special issue on criminal law theory.

The distinction between the criminal fault elements of recklessness and negligence is one of Anglo-American criminal law’s key distinctions. It is a distinction with practical significance, as many serious crimes require at least recklessness and cannot be committed negligently. The distinction is standardly marked by awareness. Recklessness requires awareness that one’s conduct carries a risk of harm. Negligence only requires that one ought to have been aware that one’s conduct carried such a risk, even if one was in fact unaware (...) of this. But should the recklessness/negligence distinction be marked by awareness of risk, or by something else? Does a defendant’s awareness of risk really have the normative significance to mark such a distinction? In this paper, I answer these questions by discussing a challenge to this ‘standard account’ of the recklessness/negligence distinction raised by the work of Antony Duff, who defends an alternative, non-awareness-based model of the recklessness/negligence distinction. I will argue that, although Duff’s alternative model fails, seeing how it goes wrong helps us see how awareness genuinely does have the right kind of normative significance to mark the distinction between recklessness and negligence. (shrink)

Criminal courts make decisions that can remove the liberty and even life of those accused. Civil trials can cause the bankruptcy of companies employing thousands of people, asylum seekers being deported, or children being placed into state care. Selecting the right standards when deciding legal cases is of utmost importance in giving those affected a fair deal. This Element is an introduction to the philosophy of legal proof. It is organised around five questions. First, it introduces the standards of proof (...) and considers what justifies them. Second, it discusses whether we should use different standards in different cases. Third, it asks whether trials should end only in binary outcomes (e.g. guilty or not guilty) or rather use more fine-grained or precise verdicts. Fourth, it considers whether proof is simply about probability, concentrating on the famous 'Proof Paradox'. Finally, it examines who should be trusted with deciding trials, focusing on the jury system. (shrink)

Today, there are several problems in the field of criminal law caused both by the emergence of new types of legal relations and by the imperfection of legislation. Due to the emergence of new challenges in the field of criminal law, many of them require theoretical understanding. Some of these challenges, generated in the light of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, revealed several reasons for discussion in the Ukrainian and international legal community. The purpose of the (...) study involves consideration of certain aspects of modern challenges in the field of criminal-legal relations, which arose against the background of the military aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. The first part of the study is devoted to the question of the qualification of war crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine as acts of genocide. The second part of the work is devoted to the issue of using existing international legal mechanisms to hold the Russian Federation accountable for war crimes. There are convincing reasons to say that the actions of the Russian Federation during the war in Ukraine have signs of the crime of genocide. Even though Ukraine is not a party to the Rome Statute, the Ukrainian government can use another tool to bring the subjects of war crimes to justice, by creating a certain mixed investigative mechanism or a criminal tribunal that could deal directly with the crime of aggression. (shrink)

Criminal law abolitionists claim that legal punishment cannot be morally justified and that we should therefore abolish criminal law. While this is still a minority position in the current debate, the number of proponents has been increasing, and even opponents have developed a certain degree of sympathy for such claims in recent years. Yet one of the reasons many remain hesitant regarding the abolition of criminal law appears to be the lack of a thought-through alternative, in addition to abolitionists disagreeing (...) considerably amongst themselves on what an alternative should look like. I will call this the missing alternative objection. To address this central concern, I will argue in this paper that the most prominent versions of abolitionism actually converge on the same alternative core to criminal law — even though they are driven by vastly different motivations. This core that current abolitionist theories converge on is two-fold: first, the claim that the state should compel offenders to provide restitution for the victim; second, the claim that restorative processes should be used wherever possible when addressing criminal wrongdoing. This common core is enough to reject the missing alternative objection. (shrink)

Un traité classique de philosophie du droit pénal écrit au 19ème siècle par l'éminent philosophe français Adolphe Franck. Ce livre examine les fondements éthiques et philosophiques du système de justice pénale et propose une réflexion sur les principes sous-jacents qui devraient guider la politique pénale d'une société éclairée. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the (...) United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine conferring liability from one party onto another because the latter stands in some relationship of authority over the former. Though originally a doctrine of tort law, for the past century it has been used within the criminal law, especially to the end of securing criminal liability for corporations. Here, I argue that on at least one prominent conception of criminal responsibility, we are not justified in using this doctrine in this way. Firms are not (...) answerable for the crimes committed by their employees, because firms cannot answer as to why the crime was committed; they lack the authority to offer the employee’s reasons for action. Though this rules out respondeat superior as a general principle, I show contexts in which vicarious liability is still appropriate in the criminal law, and I respond to a number of other concerns raised by this picture. (shrink)

Cet article porte sur le déterminisme compatibiliste de Kazimierz Twardowski. Dans un premier temps, j’explique ce qu’est le déterminisme selon Twardowski et pourquoi il s’agit d’après lui d’une position plus probable que l’indéterminisme. Dans un deuxième temps, je présente son analyse du concept d’imputation [poczytywanie] – très proche de ce qu’on appelle en philosophie pénale la character theory of excuses – qui lui permet de concilier déterminisme et imputation. Cette analyse pose qu’un acte ne peut être imputé (à faute ou (...) à mérite) que s’il émane du caractère de l’agent. Dans un troisième temps, j’expose son analyse du concept de responsabilité. Dans un dernier temps, je montre que Twardowski penche vers l’incompatibilisme lorsqu’il est question du remords ou du sentiment de responsabilité, mais qu’il ne pense pas que cela doive nous conduire au scepticisme éthique. Cet article comporte en annexe une traduction d’une publication synthétique de Twardowski sur ce sujet. (shrink)

本书共分18章,内容包括:马克思、恩格斯对剥削阶级法的立场;马克思、恩格斯关于犯罪的思想;马克思、恩格斯关于刑法原则的论述等。.

La mal llamada “Conquista del Desierto” constituyó una serie de campañas militares ocurridas en el actual territorio patagónico argentino entre los años 1878 y 1885 cuyo resultado fue el asesinato, la violación y sometimiento a la esclavitud de diversos pueblos y comunidades indígenas. Este no fue un caso aislado, sino que se suma a una serie de ataques sistemáticos que han sufrido los indígenas en la Argentina. En los últimos años, a raíz del reclamo y las luchas de los pueblos (...) y comunidades indígenas, así como también de las organizaciones de derechos humanos, se han comenzado a juzgar algunos de estos hechos. En particular, la Masacre de Napalpí (1924) y la Masacre de La Bomba (1947) fueron los primeros que lograron respuestas judiciales favorables. En ambos se determinó que el accionar estatal era constitutivo de un genocidio y, por lo tanto, se debía resarcir a las comunidades actuales. Ahora bien, la Campaña del Desierto, al día de hoy, no tiene respuesta por parte del Estado. Teniendo presente este panorama, nuestro objetivo en este trabajo es reconstruir los diferentes problemas que enfrenta la posibilidad del reclamo judicial. Para ello, comenzaremos describiendo en qué consistió la Campaña del Desierto. Luego, explicaremos la noción de genocidio aplicado a hechos de injusticias históricas. Como tercer paso, reconstruiremos los casos jurisprudenciales que se han preocupado por genocidios indígenas ocurridos en el pasado. Con este panorama revelado, nos enfocaremos en los diferentes problemas jurídicos y políticos que surgen en los reclamos de justicia. (shrink)

En la literatura jurídico penal, el arrepentimiento cobra relevancia en un lugar específico: la condena, más precisamente, en la determinación de la pena del sujeto que ha sido encontrado responsable por la comisión de un delito y que, a su vez, se encuentra arrepentido por su accionar. Desde la concepción comunicativa del castigo, en este trabajo contestaré las siguientes preguntas: ¿El arrepentimiento significa un menor reproche penal o es indiferente para la determinación de la pena? en caso de que implique (...) un acercamiento al castigo mínimo establecido en la legislación ¿Cuándo es razonable que esto suceda? (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to study the historical aspects of the development of legislation that defines the criminal law measures of influence for the commission of domestic violence. To achieve the goals of the article, the following research methods were used: empirical (observation, description) and theoretical (analysis, systems approach, deduction). The use of the historical method allowed to outline the process of formation of legislation in the field of combating domestic violence in accordance with the chronology of events (...) of the past; use of methods of logic and dialectics – to analyze normative sources on the research topic. The scientific novelty of the study is to reveal the historical and legal aspects of criminal law measures in the context of limiting domestic violence. It is established that the fight against domestic violence through the use of criminal law measures of influence is the result of the historical development of Ukrainian statehood and the legal system, ratification of international documents, bringing domestic legislation into line with international law. Conclusions. The Ukrainian model of combating domestic violence has been gradually improved through the adoption of relevant regulations. At the same time, the issue of formalizing the system of criminal law measures to prevent domestic violence has long remained unresolved. The amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine are the result of the adaptation of best international practices designed to lay a solid foundation in the application of adequate criminal law measures to combat domestic violence. The study allowed to trace and clearly identify the main historical steps in the formation of a system of criminal law measures to regulate domestic violence and to understand which legal sources have become an integral part of national legislation on the outlined issues. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze a selection of arguments used by the Argentine Supreme Court to reduce the sentence of individuals convicted of crimes against humanity. The focus will be primarily centered on “Muiña´s case”, in which a lenient outdated ruling was made. The questions that this work will try to answer revolve around the court´s merit in issuing this lenient ruling to Muiña´s case and its justification. First, Muiña´s case is analyzed in depth. Then, a critical (...) analysis about the ruling and a decision concerning the existence of a true justification will be developed. Finally, we will discuss the appropriateness of the Court’s decision in Muiña´s case as opposed to the decision made in “Batalla´s case”, in which a less beneficial law was applied retroactively. (shrink)

Literary texts are a set of intellectual and cultural reserves of nations and reflect their thoughts, ideas and hopes which in every era and period are affected by people and their needs. Many problems such as sociology, management, economy, politics, cultural and social aspects and law exist in literature. Thus, in order to know nations one has to be affiliated with their literature. Legal subjects and related concepts and terms are among issues which are specifically prominent in these texts and (...) so far little attention has been paid to them. In this research authors try to examine the chapters of "Lion and Cow" and "investigating Demne's work" in terms of criminal law, which alone is one of the principal branches of law, because the phenomena of crime and criminal are highly manifested in these two chapters. Crime and criminal, various punishments and their objectives, and subjects related to penal justice such as testimony, juridical investigations and judge's impressionability are posed in this paper and in each case it is tried to analyze the subjects in comparison to Islamic criminal law. This research indicates that by thinking and going through literary texts one can find the point of similarity between literature and legal discussions. As a result, literature and its valuable content can be used for enriching legal rules and regulations as well as preventing crimes and promoting health of society. (shrink)