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Opportunities and Boundaries for Criminal Law in a Risk Society : Changes in the regulatory role of criminal law in a postmodern age
99-112Views:104In the last few decades of the 20th century, the modernization of our world started to accelerate. This tendency means a transition to a second modernization. Risk society has posed new and previously unknown challenges for the decision makers of the world. As a result of it, criminal law, with its traditional instruments, often fails to provide the right response to the new types of criminal acts seriously threatening society. Therefore, there is a need for a change of paradigm. The task to be performed among the prevailing circumstances of risk society is to select those acts the frequency of which can still be effectively influenced by criminal law through the analysis of advantages/disadvantages and cost/benefit. Instruments different to those of criminal law are to be used against serious threats that cannot be influenced by criminal law – threats the seriousness of which are not yet known to a large extent.
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Symbolic Legislation in Criminal Law
173-189Views:249The study makes efforts to analyse the concept of symbolic legislation, particularly the question of the symbolic criminal law. In the first part of the paper, the author discusses the issues of international (German) literature which relates to the problem of symbolic criminal law. The second part contains the Hungarian theoretical standpoints from which the author draws the conclusion that the concept of symbolic criminal law can be interpreted in multiple ways. Symbolic criminal law is described by some scholars as a critique of the legislature, however according to other opinions – which are the focus of this essay – the concept of symbolic criminal law has a positive meaning which includes the viewpoint that the legislator tries to turn the attention of society to the obligation of saving the general ethical values, and on the other side, it emphasizes the high-priority values set by the legislator in actual social-political situations
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Impact of EU Law on National Criminal Law
79-93Views:98This paper aims to analyse the main linking points between EU law and national criminal law. For a long time, the criminal laws of the Member States have been heavily affected by EU law. This influence can be either negative or positive. The most lenient form of the positive effect is the assimilation principle, which does not seek to incorporate EU norms into national criminal law, only attempts to extend the latter’s applicability to the protection of the interests of the European Union. In the case of legal harmonization the Member States are required to adopt common criminal norms which aim to reduce the differences of the national criminal law systems. The most serious impact on national penal law is the supranational criminal legislation, which results not only in the approximation but the unification of the criminal laws of the Member States.
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The Problem of Defining Criminal Norms Precisely. The „Clarity of Norms” Doctrine in the Decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and in Judicial Practice
37-59Views:328The principles of legality in criminal law determine numerous requirements both for the legislator creating criminal statutes and for judges as well who decide criminal cases. One of the most important demands of legality is the principle of maximum certainty according to which the state must establish a system of criminal law in which the wording of the statutes are clear, precise and understandable for the citizens; and judges are able to interpret criminal rules without making arbitrary decisions. In the Hungarian legal system the demands of maximum certainty are represented by the principle of nullum crimen sine lege. This principle is called the „clarity of norms” doctrine in the practice of the Constitutional Court of Hungary (HCC) which is entitled to strike down criminal statutes which do not meet its requirements. The aim of this paper is to argue for the claim that the „clarity of norms doctrine” and the concept of certainty in criminal law is based mostly on considerations about the plain meaning of words and texts and lack a coherent theoretical background in the decisions of the HCC and in judicial practice as well. The author offers a more complex and coherent conception of certainty stating that its requirements relate not only to linguistic considerations but also to thinking over the moral and political values of criminal law as well.
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Some theoretical and Practical Issues of Sentencing
11-25Views:245Sentencing is connected to the trial stage of the criminal procedure; more precisely, it takes place at its end. Judges fulfil only a part, and not even the hardest one, of their duty by establishing criminal liability as a result of the evidentiary procedure. Sentencing is a rather complex and complicated process. Judges face a lot of expectations: they often have to reconcile contradictory expectations with each other in order to impose a satisfactory sentence for the parties. The process of sentencing has received intense criticism. Sometimes judges are accused of imposing unduly lenient sentences or criticized for too severe punishments.
Another problem is presented by the fact that different sentences are passed for crimes of the same sort at different courts in the country. Sentencing thus raises many theoretical questions that I seek to answer in the study.
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The Temporal Scope of the German Criminal Code
149-172Views:350The problem of temporal scope is also reflected in Germany’s criminal law. Its essence is the usage of the more lenient law in the case of the difference between the law of perpetration and the law of decision-making. The German Criminal Code has a 150 year history, with the original version being around 170 years old. It’s respectable age allows us to conclude that it has a stable character, however due to its countless modifications there has always been a significant problem – and there still is today – in relation to its interpretation. This study also provides a brief outlook on the regulation of the temporal scope in other German-speaking countries.
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Critical Remarks on the Acquittal of Vojislav Šešelj with regard to Instigation, Aiding and Abetting
97-109Views:124Vojislav Šešelj was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on 31 March 2016. The Trial Chamber of the ICTY assessed evidence on the recruitment of volunteers (who later became perpetrators of international crimes), the defendant’s extremist, nationalistic and public hate speeches, and drew the conclusion that he is not responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The present paper discusses gaps and mistakes appearing in the judgement from the point of view of two criminal liability concepts: instigation and aiding and abetting. After briefly summarizing the standards applied by the ICTY, the author presents a reassessment of the facts referring also to the major arguments of Judge Flavia Lattanzi (dissenting).
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Deepfake: a Blessing or a Curse? Legal Regulatory Aspects
157-178Views:234A deepfake is a video, audio or other content (e.g. image) that is completely or partially fabricated or created by manipulating existing, real content. Just as fake news calls into question the authenticity of real news, deepfake also calls into question the authenticity of real content. At the same time, deepfake has many advantages in addition to its often mentioned dangers. Following a historical overview of deepfake, the study describes these benefits and dangers, and then discusses possible legal responses after presenting tools for detecting deepfake.
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Determining the Period of Criminal Legal Limitation
99-113Views:295In my essay I examine the statutes of limitation in criminal law. Firstly, I give a general description of limitation, of its position in the Criminal Code and of its legal theory. Secondly, I review the legal history of limitation demonstrating the system of limitation in our first criminal code. After that, I outline the regulations concerning the period of limitation and then describe the way limitation is enforced in the statute of criminal procedure. Finally, I draw the conclusions of my essay in the form of a proposition de lege ferenda.
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Judging Homicide Cases: Legal Rules and Practice of the Regional Court of Appeal of Debrecen
113-130Views:95The Autor examined the sentencing practice of the Regional Court of Appeal of Debrecen in homicide cases. The conclusion of his paper is, based on the examination of relevant case law, that courts regard the medium of the custody range as a basis for sentencing in homicide cares. This practice is independent of the relevant requirements provided by the General Part of the Criminal Code. The author also states, according to the examination mentioned above, that a life impissonment without the possibility of parote, is only exceptionally in the recent practice.
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The Criminalisation of Active Bribery of Public Officials: A New KOL Research in Hungary
9-29Views:241The aim of the three-year project “Novelties of Criminal Law in Legal Consciousness” was to measure the knowledge and attitudes of lay people concerning criminal law including regulatory novelties with a questionnaire-based survey. In this paper, the authors analyse the responses to questions related to active bribery of public officials. The research has verified our hypothesis that the average person has a fragmented knowledge even about this sector of criminal law. However, this is partly due to the fact that the respondents – compared to the differentiation of the legal regulation – usually have schematic knowledge on the topic. The answers were strongly influenced by attitudes towards this type of criminality. It was not substantiated, however, that this knowledge is substantially affected by socio-economic factors, by media consumption or by encountering criminality. Our hypothesis regarding the novelty of regulation has been only partially proven: there are more than three times more people whose answers reflect the old regulation than the new one. However, this was not necessarily due to actual knowledge of the older regulation, but rather to the fact that it was more in line with respondents insensitivity to legal distinctions.
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The International Legal Framework of Maritime Piracy
161-177Views:262Although maritime piracy is the oldest crime committed at sea, it is still present to this day and counts as a threat: it not only endangers human lives but also causes damage to international trade. Firm actions must be taken against this international crime and those international agreements which define the definition and the elements of conduct of maritime piracy and also contain procedural provisions to suppress it count as vital elements of these actions. Currently there are two agreements which contain anti-piracy regulations and they regulate several matters appropriately but they also have many shortcomings. In this article I examine the anti-piracy regulations of these agreements.
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The Challenges of Cryptocurrencies in Substantive Criminal Law and Procedure
79-98Views:908The legal status of cryptocurrencies is a gray area in most legal systems, although criminals increasingly abuse cryptocurrencies to fund criminal activities. The study analyses solely the criminal use of cryptocurrencies. For example money launderers have evolved to use cryptocurrencies in their operations, therefore legislative changes at EU level, or the uniform application of existing anti-money laundering regulations have been required. In a trend mirroring attacks on banks and their customers, cryptocurrency users and exchangers have become victims of cybercrimes themselves. Conventional crimes may be committed via cryptocurrencies such as fraud and extortion. Darknet criminal markets use cryptocurrencies as payment instruments since they offer better anonimity and some of them greater privacy. They are less traceable and their decentralised system challenges law enforcement.
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Old and new challenges: poverty, migration, criminality
96-107Views:195Intensive economic, social and political changes cause local and global effects, which means that both universal (including the un, european union and other Igo’s) and national responses are necessary and shall be harmonized. Individual responses, without taking into consideration the other universal and national actor’s steps can cause more problems than they solve. According to the official un statistics, people who are forced to leave their country of origin, flow mostly from the region of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to the EU Member States. This means that their legal, cultural and religious background are different from the EU standards, which can be considered as sources of additional social (and sometimes criminal) problems. It is clear that all the states have right to take legal steps against crimes committed by these people (independently from the question whether their presence in the territory of the country is lawful or not), enforcing all the international and national standards of fair trials and humanity during the procedures started against them. The topic is extremely hot nowadays in Hungary and in the European Union.