Teori Hukum Pidana Minimalis dari Douglas Husak: Urgensi dan Relevansi

Douglas Husak has been widely known, especially in the United States and Europe, as a leading theorist who combines the disciplines of legal philosophy and criminal law. Most of his writings were directed at the use of the coercive means of the state through criminal law as minimum as possible. The minimalist theory of criminal law that he coined was motivated by the phenomenon of the increasing number of acts criminalized in the United States Federal State Law in which the majority related to offenses of risk prevention causing overcriminalization. To prevent this, criminal law must be placed as a last resort. The state’s decision to criminalize an act must pay attention to internal and external constraints. The first includes the nontrivial harm or evil constraint, the culpability of the actor, and the proportionality of punishment, while the second is related to the substantiality of the state’s authority to punish. The thought is relevant to be adopted in the criminalization policy in Indonesia, especially regarding the principle of the blameworthiness of conduct, the severity of punishment must weigh the dangerousness of the (actor) offenses, and criminalization should not be taken if other means are equally effective or even more effective to achieve the goal. Abstrak Douglas Husak dikenal luas terutama di Amerika Serikat dan Eropa sebagai teoretisi terkemuka yang menggabungkan antara disiplin filsafat hukum dan hukum pidana. Tulisan-tulisan Husak kebanyakan diarahkan pada penggunaan sarana koersif negara melalui hukum pidana seminimal mungkin. Teori hukum pidana minimalis yang dicetuskannya dilatarbelakangi fenomena semakin banyaknya perbuatan-perbuatan yang dikriminalisasi dalam undang-undang Negara Federal Amerika dan mayoritas terkait offenses of risk prevention sehingga menimbulkan kelebihan kriminalisasi. Untuk mencegahnya, hukum pidana harus ditempatkan sebagai sarana terakhir. Keputusan negara untuk mengkriminalisasi suatu perbuatan harus memperhatikan pembatas internal dan pembatas eksternal. Yang pertama meliputi sifat jahat dan dampak kerugian/kerusakan yang begitu serius dari dilakukannya suatu tindak pidana, kesalahan pembuat, dan proporsionalitas pidana; sedangkan yang kedua terkait substansialitas kewenangan negara untuk memidana. Pemikiran Husak relevan untuk diadopsi dalam kebijakan kriminalisasi di Indonesia terutama menyangkut prinsip ketercelaan suatu perbuatan, penetapan beratnya ancaman pidana mengacu pada seriusitas delik dan kesalahan pembuat, dan kriminalisasi tidak boleh ditempuh jika cara-cara lain sama efektif atau bahkan lebih efektif untuk mencapai tujuan.

Czy kar jest za dużo? Wokół Douglasa Husaka koncepcji kryminalizacji

The author endeavours to make a critical reflection on the concept of criminalization as formulated by Douglas Husak. D. Husak’s views on criminal policy are presented in a wider philosophical context and juxtaposed with assumptions of basic critical trends in criminal law science. Also, some suggestions are formulated to supplement Husak’s concept, who points out, above all, when punishment should not be applied. A supplement to Husak’s idea is a somewhat perverse attempt to collect model situations, in which recognition of an act as a crime can be justified (which the author himself tried to avoid). In addition, the article attempts to combine the philosophy of law with criminal policy and indicates the need to take into consideration philosophical foundations of criminal law policy.

Self-defence and excuse

The text deals with the difference between two types of defence in litigation: justifications and excuses. These two defences, according to John Austin (?A Plea for Excuses?, 1956-57), are mutually exclusive because justification means accepting responsibility for the act in question and claiming that it is not bad, while excuse involves accepting that the act in question is bad, but denies responsibility. I will present arguments against Austin?s viewpoint that are presented by Douglas Husak in ?On the Supplied Priority of Justification for Excuse? (2005) and Andrew Botterell in ?A Primer on the Distinction between Justification and Excuse? (2009). I will show that their reasons are inconsistent with the basic standards of self-defence, which is a paradigmatic case of justification.

The Challenge of the Bad Man

H.L.A. Hart’s insight, that some people may be guided by an offence provision because they take it as authoritative and not merely to avoid sanctions, has had an enormous influence upon criminal law theory. Hart, however, did not claim that any person in any actual legal order in fact thinks like the “puzzled man”, and there is lingering doubt as to the extent to which we should place him at the center of our analysis as we try to make sense of moral problems in the criminal law. Instead, we might find that our understanding of at least some issues in criminal law theory is advanced when we look through the eyes of Holmes’ “bad man”. This becomes clear when we consider the respective works by Hart and Douglas Husak on overcriminalization, James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick’s recent discussion of fair labeling, and Meir Dan-Cohen’s classic analysis of acoustic separation. These works also suggest, in different ways, that an emphasis on the bad man can expose the role of discretion in criminal justice systems, and the rule of law problems it generates.