Abstract
In the face of the unstoppable expansion of criminal law that has taken place since the 1990s, criticism, is not enough, although essential. It is necessary to propose strategies that make it possible to limit the intervention of criminal law. In this direction, it is essential to apply the limiting principles of criminal law, particularly those of ultima ratio, subsidiarity, and proportionality (necessity, suitability, and proportionality, in the strict sense). Likewise, it is essential to conceive punishment with a preventive rather than a retributive purpose to avoid populism and revenge. I consider that it is essential to respect liability for the act, excluding liability for the character, and strict liability. Finally, the teleological interpretation of criminal types is essential, based on the role of exclusive protection of criminal-legal assets.
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Notes
- 1.
Robinson (2014), pp. 54–57.
- 2.
Robinson (2014), pp. 10–11.
- 3.
Die Metaphysik der Sitten, págs. 227–230.
- 4.
Lesch (1999), p. 4.
- 5.
Mir Puig (2016), p. 102.
- 6.
Welzel (1969), p. 240.
- 7.
Frisch (2014), pp. 11–12.
- 8.
Robinson (2014), pp. 32–46.
- 9.
Frisch (2014), p. 12.
- 10.
Hörnle and von Hirsch (1995), pp. 261–265.
- 11.
Mir Puig (2016), p. 43.
- 12.
- 13.
Silva Sánchez (2011), pp. 50–55.
- 14.
VVAA (1999).
- 15.
Corcoy Bidasolo (2011).
- 16.
Pérez Manzano (1999), pp. 221 y ss.
- 17.
- 18.
Mir Puig (2016), pp. 171–176.
- 19.
It has been consistently said by case law and doctrine, to the point of becoming dogma that the appeal to criminal law as an instrument to solve conflicts, is the last reason to be resorted to by the legislator who has to act, at all times, inspired by the principle of minimum intervention of punitive instruments. Principle of minimum intervention that is part of the principle of proportionality or prohibition of excess, the requirement of which is based on the dual nature of criminal law:
-
a)
As it is a fragmentary right in that it does not protect all legal assets, but only those that are most important for social coexistence, limiting, moreover, this protection to those conducts that most intensely attack those assets.
-
b)
As it is a subsidiary right that as ultima ratio, operating only when the legal order cannot be effectively preserved and restored by means of other less drastic solutions than criminal sanction.
However, reducing the intervention of criminal law, as ultima ratio, to the minimum necessary for social control, is a reasonable postulate of criminal policy that must be taken into consideration primarily by the legislator, but in judicial practice, although it can serve as a guide, it irremediably runs up against the requirements of the principle of legality, since it is not the judge but the legislator who must decide, by setting the types and penalties, what the limits of the intervention of criminal law should be.
On the other hand, the principle of minimum intervention can only be fully understood if it is integrated in a context of social change in which there is a trend towards decriminalization of certain acts - the so-called “petty crimes” or behaviors that have ceased to receive significant social reproach - but also a trend in the opposite direction that criminalizes attacks against legal assets that the transformation that has occurred in the axiological plane makes particularly valuable.
-
a)
- 20.
In the same line, the TS ruling dated October 27, 2009, requires that access to P2P file sharing software not be automatically applied, always requiring the concurrence of willful misconduct.
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Corcoy Bidasolo, M. (2023). Is It Possible to Limit the Penal Intervention in the Twenty-First Century?. In: Demetrio Crespo, E., García Figueroa, A., Marcilla Córdoba, G. (eds) Crisis of the Criminal Law in the Democratic Constitutional State. Legal Studies in International, European and Comparative Criminal Law, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13413-5_1
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