Criminal Law Concepts: Definitions, Subjects, Guilt, and Interpretation

Legal Definition and Classification of Crimes

The Penal Code of 1982 defines a crime as an act committed voluntarily, freely, and maliciously, or an omission that is prohibited by law and punishable by a penalty. Crimes are actions or voluntary omissions punished by law.

Classification of Crimes

Crimes are categorized into serious penal infractions and faults, with faults being minor penal infractions. Crimes are classified based on several criteria:

1. Manifestation of the Action: How the criminal act is expressed.
2. Relation to the Problematic: Distinguishing between formal and material crimes.
3. Nature: The inherent characteristics of the offense.
4. Determination of the Subject: Who commits the crime.
5. Active Order of Prosecutability: The process by which a crime can be prosecuted.

Key Elements of Criminal Action

Subjects of Criminal Action

• Active Subject (Delinquent): This refers exclusively to physical persons. The penal character of the crime is attributed only to those who commit the typical action described in penal law. Only individual physical persons can be considered delinquents, as they are endowed with intelligence and will.
• Legal Persons (Article 31): According to Article 31, "The person acting as administrator or legal representative of a legal entity will be personally responsible, even if the conditions, qualities, or relationships of the crime do not apply to them, as they can be the active subject of the crime."
• Passive Subject: This is the owner of the legal asset that has been injured. The passive subject may or may not coincide with the prejudiced party (the victim subject to liabilities).

Object of the Crime

The object of the crime, or the object of care, is the person, animal, or thing upon which the criminal action falls. For example, in drug-related offenses, the drug itself is the object of care.

Legal Asset

The legal asset is the legally protected interest that is injured or put in danger by the crime. For example, in drug trafficking, the legal asset protected is public health or safety, which is injured by the illegal substance.

Guilt and Fundamental Principles of Criminal Law

Guilt and Accountability

According to the principle that the penal response must be proportional to the intent to blame, the following aspects related to the subject's guilt are highlighted:

1. Accountability of the subject.
2. No penalty without malice or imprudence.
3. Responsibility is a consequence of guilt; it can only be demanded from individual persons for their own acts, without supporting collective responsibility.
4. The degree of guilt (major/minor) will be taken into account for the graduation of the penalty.

Core Principles

• Principle of the Act: Criminal law is applied from the first act of action by a subject.
• Principle of Legality: Closely tied to the principle of minimal intervention.
• Principle of Proportionality: The penalty will be proportional to the degree of the subject's guilt.
• Principle Ne Bis in Idem: The more serious crime absorbs the less serious one, provided there is progression in the criminal act.

Standards are established, generally preferring judicial authority and, in some cases, governmental authority for knowledge and application.

Interpretation and Analogy in Criminal Law

Interpretation in Criminal Law

Regarding interpretation in criminal law, it can be said that it has overcome the 'old prohibition of interpreting laws,' acknowledging the necessity of understanding legal texts beyond mere literalism.

• Object of Interpretation: The discovery of the true meaning of the law.
• Subjects of Interpretation: Primarily the legislator and the judge.
• Means and Results: Various means are employed, leading to a descriptive declaration that can be either restrictive or extensive.

Analogy in Criminal Law

The principle states that "criminal laws do not apply to cases other than those expressly included in them." Analogy is related to the retroactivity of laws. In criminal law, analogy is generally rejected as a creative source of crime and punishment, which must be expressly stated in the Act (e.g., for extenuating circumstances).