FIXING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE CONCEPT OF CRIME: THE CHALLENGE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

2005 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Guinchard

In England and Wales, as elsewhere, criminal law stands in sharp contrast to other systems of social control. Criminal offences and their related penalties are clearly distinguishable from civil wrongs and their associated (civil) sanctions. And because the term ‘civil law’ refers not only to the domain of torts, but also encompasses administrative law, criminal penalties are, in addition, distinguished from the administrative or regulatory sanctions. This ‘distinction between criminal and civil justice has been such a basic feature of the common law’1that it shapes not only substantive law but also the organization of the courts into civil, criminal and sometimes administrative chambers or divisions. More importantly, the distinction between civil and criminal sanctions will lead to the application of different procedural rules: civil proceedings, used for the imposition of civil sanctions, are less stringent that their criminal counterpart applied when the offender faces a criminal sanction. This more gentle approach can be detected in both the burden and standard of proof.

Jurnal Hukum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1592
Author(s):  
Hanafi Amrani

AbstrakArtikel ini membahas dua permasalahan pokok: pertama, kriteria yang digunakan oleh pembentuk undang-undang di bidang politik dalam menetapkan suatu perbuatan sebagai perbuatan pidana (kriminalisasi); dan kedua, fungsi sanksi pidana dalam undang-undang di bidang politik. Terkait dengan kriminalisasi, undang-undang di bidang politik yang termasuk ke dalam hukum administrasi, maka pertimbangan dari pembuat undang-undang tentu saja tidak sekedar kriminalisasi sebagaimana diatur dalam ketentuan hukum pidana dalam arti sebenarnya. Hal tersebut disebabkan adanya pertimbangan-pertimbangan tertentu. Pertama, perbuatan yang dilarang dalam hukum pidana administrasi lebih berorientasi pada perbuatan yang bersifat mala prohibita, sedangkan dalam ketentuan hukum pidana yang sesungguhnya berorientasi pada perbuatan yang bersifat mala in se. Kedua, sebagai konsekuensi dari adanya penggolongan dua kategori kejahatan tersebut, maka pertimbangan yang dijadikan acuan juga akan berbeda. Untuk yang pertama (mala prohibita), sanksi pidana itu dibutuhkan untuk menjamin ditegakkannya hukum administrasi tersebut. Dalam hal ini sanksi pidana berfungsi sebagai pengendali dan pengontrol tingkah laku individu untuk mencapai suatu keadaan yang diinginkan. Sedangkan untuk yang kedua (mala in se), fungsi hukum pidana dan sanksi pidana lebih berorientasi pada melindungi dan mempertahankan nilai-nilai moral yang tertanam di masyarakat tempat di mana hukum itu diberlakukan atau ditegakkan. Kata Kunci: Kebijakan, Kriminalisasi, Undang-Undang PolitikThis article discusses two main problems: firstly, the criteria used by the legislators in the field of politics in determining an act as a criminal act (criminalization); secondly, the function of criminal sanctions in legislation in the field of politics. Associated with criminalization, legislation in the field of politics that is included in administrative law, the consideration of the legislators of course not just criminalization as stipulated in the provisions of criminal law in the true sense. This is due to certain considerations. Firstly, the act which is forbidden in the administration of criminal law is more oriented to act is malum prohibitum offences, whereas in actual criminal law provisions in the act are mala in se offences. Secondly, as a consequence of the existence of two categories of classification of the crime, then consideration will also vary as a reference. For the first (mala prohibita), criminal sanctions are needed to ensure the enforcement of the administrative law. In this case the criminal sanction serves as controller and controlling the behavior of individuals to achieve a desired state. As for the second (mala in se), the function of criminal law and criminal sanctions is more oriented to protect and maintain the moral values that are embedded in a society where the law was enacted or enforced.


2021 ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Omri Ben-Shahar ◽  
Ariel Porat

This chapter illustrates personalized law “in action” by examining it in three areas of the law: standards of care under the common law tort doctrine of negligence, mandated consumer protections in contract law, and criminal sanctions. In each area, the chapter examines personalization of commands along several dimensions. In tort law, standards of care could vary according to each injurer’s riskiness and skill, to reduce the costs of accidents. In contract law, mandatory protections could vary according to the value they provide each consumer and differential cost they impose on firms, to allocate protections where, and only where, they are justified. And in criminal law, sanctions would be set based on what it takes to deter criminals, accounting for how perpetrators differ in their motives and likelihood of being apprehended, with the potential to reduce unnecessary harsh penalties.


2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa

AbstractThe 1994 Malawian Constitution is unique in that it, among other things, recognizes administrative justice as a fundamental right and articulates the notion of constitutional supremacy. This right and the idea of constitutional supremacy have important implications for Malawi's administrative law, which was hitherto based on the common law inherited from Britain. This article highlights the difficulties that Malawian courts have faced in reconciling the right to administrative justice as protected under the new constitution with the common law. In doing so, it offers some insights into what the constitutionalization of administrative justice means for Malawian administrative law. It is argued that the constitution has altered the basis and grounds for judicial review so fundamentally that the Malawian legal system's marriage to the English common law can be regarded as having irretrievably broken down as far as administrative law is concerned.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Eman Sulaiman

<p>Abstract</p><p><span>The use of criminal sanctions as the main sanction has indicated the extent to<br /><span>which the level of understanding of the legislators to the problem of "crime and<br /><span>punishment". At least show that the limited understanding of the use of criminal<br /><span>sanctions also affect the determination of criminal sanctions in administrative<br /><span>law. "Errors" in the formulation of the implications for the difficulty and<br /><span>confusion in the law enforcement, because there is a gap of two disciplines,<br /><span>namely the criminal law on the one hand and on the other hand administrative<br /><span>law, which has its own procedural law. This confusion will lead to ambiguity in<br /><span>the resolution of cases of violation of administrative law contains criminal<br /><span>sanctions, whether enforcement will be carried out by law enforcement agencies<br /><span>within the criminal justice sisitem or whether officials of the state administration<br /><span>in the sphere of administration? Such circumstances, of course, will lead to the<br /><span>existence of legal uncertainty for the community.<br /><span>Kata Kunci: <em>sanksi pidana, hukum pidana, hukum administrasi</em></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></p>


Author(s):  
Andrew Burrows

Torts and breach of contract are termed common law wrongs because they were historically developed in the common law courts. Equitable wrongs are civil wrongs that historically were developed in the Court of Chancery. Despite the fusion of the common law courts and the Court of Chancery by the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts 1873–1875, much of the substantive law has not been fused. One example is the continued distinction between common law and equitable wrongs. In a rational fused system, nothing should turn on whether a civil wrong is common law or equitable. But that is not the present law.


Author(s):  
Kenneth McK. Norrie

The earliest criminal law dealing with children differently from the adult population was that concerned with sexual offences. This chapter explores the changing policies of the law, from the late 19th century fear of girls being exposed to immorality and boys being exposed to homosexuality, through the more protective 20th century legislation which nevertheless hung on to old ideas of immorality and criminality, until the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 focused almost (but not quite) exclusively on protection from harm and from exploitation. The chapter then turns to the crime of child cruelty or neglect from its earliest manifestation in the common law to its statutory formulation in Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act 1889, which, re-enacted in 1937, took on a form that, for all intents and purposes, remains to this day. The last part of the chapter explores the legal basis for the power of corporal punishment – the defence previously available to parents, teachers and some others to a charge of assault of a child, known as “reasonable” chastisement. Its gradual abolition from the 1980s to 2019 is described.


Author(s):  
Janet McLean

The authority claims of the administration have undergone radical change with consequences for the shape and content of administrative law. In the seventeenth century, authority was claimed in office, as a means to limit the imposition of the King’s will and to secure the independence of officials, especially the judges. In the eighteenth century, virtue, property, and independence became the basis for office, and the common law sought to enhance such authority through notions of public trust. After the nineteenth-century transition to more centralised and bureaucratic hierarchy, democracy became the new source of authority for the administration, reinforced by the ultra vires doctrine. In each era, the authority claims of the administration have been reflected in the frameworks for judicial supervision. In this way the common law has simultaneously constituted and controlled authority. In the present day we are in the process of rethinking whence administrators derive their legitimate authority and the theoretical foundations of judicial review. Beginning with the authority claims of the administration and framing a juridical response which reflects and tests such claims would be a good place to start.


1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Louise Tee

ADVERSE possession and registered land are unlikely bedfellows–the one originating in the common law idea that a freehold estate results from possession and the other premised upon registration validating title. Indeed, when registration of title was introduced into England and Wales in the nineteenth century, acquisition of title to registered land by adverse possession was prohibited–see section 21 of the Land Transfer Act 1875. However, a more pragmatic approach then ensued, and the Land Registration Act 1925, s. 75, expansively provided that the Limitation Acts should apply to registered land in the same manner and to the same extent as those Acts applied to unregistered land. But technically, of course, this was impossible, and the section detailed a special trust mechanism for registered land alone. Section 75 thus clearly illustrates the inherent difficulties in trying to retain the substantive law of unregistered land within a registered context. Tensions are inevitable, because of the very different conceptual bases of the two systems. In Central London Commercial Estates Ltd. v. Kato Kagaku Ltd., The Times, 27 July 1998, Sedley J. was directly faced with such tension, as he strove to determine the effect of section 75.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-408
Author(s):  
Miriam Gur-Arye

The book Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice: Anglo-German Dialogues is the first volume of an Anglo-German project which aims ‘to explore the foundational principles and concepts that underpin the different domestic systems and local rules’. It offers comparative perspectives on German and Anglo-American criminal law and criminal justice as ‘examples of the civil law and the common law worlds’. The comparisons ‘dig beneath the superficial similarities or differences between legal rules to identify and compare the underlying concepts, values, principles, and structures of thought’. The review essay focuses on the topics of omissions, preparatory offences, and participation in crime, all of which extend the typical criminal liability. It presents the comparative German and Anglo-American perspectives discussed in the book with regard to each topic and adds the perspective of Israeli criminal law. It points out the features common to all these topics as an extension of criminal liability and discusses the underlying considerations that justify the criminalisation of omissions, preparatory offences, and participation in crime. In evaluating whether extending criminal liability in these contexts is justified, the review essay suggests reliance on two main notions: that of ‘control over the commission of the offence’ and that of ‘liberty (or personal freedom)’.


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