Proconstitutional Interpretation of Criminal Law

By (author) Krzysztof Szczucki Translated by Piotr Sitnik

Publication date:

01 December 2016

Length of book:

318 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498535847

Underlying the research for the purposes of this book were one basic assumption: transposing legal articles to behavioral norms, suitable in given circumstances and capable of resolving a problem, in this case from the realm of criminal law is difficult. This difficulty pertains not only to citizens, who cannot avail themselves of professional tools of interpretation of legal texts, but also to practitioners and academics, arguing over the correct construction of a regulation. It may be that criminal law – all its convoluted structure, overloaded with dogmatic principles – will never be understandable for average citizens. Nonetheless, it seems to be worthwhile to seek a platform for understanding, and a model for reacting to a dynamically changing social reality with its core and less fluid values. The method of finding moral clarity in criminal law is the proconstitutional interpretation. The perception of a constitution, an observation which concerns mainly democratic states, as a source of information about values of fundamental and integrating importance to a policy, led to a method of reconciling criminal law with those values within the constitution. Approaching a constitution as a source of information about values, as a matrix within which there exists a catalog of the most important values, without the need to reach beyond the system of positive law, makes this supposition acceptable also for those practitioners and academics who prefer a systemically imminent approach. The proposed scheme allows authorities responsible for forming and enforcing the law to take into account those values that play a significant role in social life. At the same time, it continues to embrace principles of legal reasoning, a safeguard against going into considerations reaching beyond the legal system. Not only may the method espoused in the book become applicable and, at least to some extent, adopted in Poland, but in other constitutional democracies as well.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Models for Achieving Moral Clarity in Criminal Law
Chapter 2: Goods Protected In Criminal Law
Chapter 3: A Method of Reconstructing Goods and the Scope of their Criminal Protection in the Constitution
Chapter 4: Common Good and Dignity of the Person as Criteria for Resolving Conflicts between Goods in Criminal Law
Chapter 5: Constitutional Foundations of Construction of a Protected Good in Criminal Law
Chapter 6: Obligations of a Legislator and Courts Stemming from the Proconstitutional Construction of Legal Goods
Final Remarks
Appendix: Case Law of the Polish Constitutional Court
Bibliography
About the Author

Considering that each criminal punishment comes with a deprivation of constitutional rights, Krzysztof Szczucki concludes that—in a constitutional system—criminal law is restricted to the protection of goods and values that are enshrined in the constitution itself, including the protection of the common good and human dignity. The idea that the extent of criminalization has to be predetermined by the constitution is highly relevant now that criminal law is often used merely as a political tool, sometimes even in an event-orientated legislative activism. The legal consequences, which Szczucki exemplifies in detail, are not only particularly interesting from the perspective of criminal law and legal philosophy, but deserve the highest attention by legal practitioners.