Reflections on the protection of human life according to the new criminal code

• Author: Duvac Constantin
• Position: Law and Economics Faculty, Social Sciences Department, Agora University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania
• Pages: 31-43

AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, www.juridicalj ournal.univagora.ro

ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677

No. 1 (2013), pp. 31-43

31

REFLECTIONS ON THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN LIFE

ACCORDING TO THE NEW CRIMINAL CODE

C. Duvac

Constantin Duvac

Law and Economics Faculty, Social Sciences Department,

Agora University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania

Associate Researcher, “Acad. Andrei Rdulescu” Institute of Legal Researches of Romanian

Academy, Bucharest, Romania

*Correspondence: Constantin Duvac, Agora University of Oradea,

8 Piaa Tineretului St., Oradea, Romania

E-mail: ctinduvac@yahoo.com.

Abstract

The author presents at the outset certain general considerations regarding the special

part of the new Criminal Code, subsequently focusing on the offences against life. He

underlines the amendments brought by the new Criminal Code in the matter under review in

terms of systematization and legal content of various criminalization norms, highlighting both

positive aspects and the arguable ones in relation to which he puts forward several de lege

ferenda proposals.

Furthermore, the author achieves a comparative research of the criminalization

norms on the protection of human life that have a correspondent in the criminal law that is

currently in force, a quick review of the ex novo criminalization norms; this analysis is

accompanied by several critical observations and recommendations (de lege ferenda

proposals) for improving the texts under review.

Keywords: Criminal Code, criminal law, offence, penalty, person.

Introduction

In terms of systematization, the drafters of the new Criminal Code, adopted by Law

no. 286/2009, as further amended and supplemented, dropped the structure of previous

criminal codes, regulating first the offences against the person and against the person’s

rights, followed by the offences against patrimony and only afterwards by the offences against

the state’s attributes or other fundamental social values.

The penalty treatment for the offences enshrined under the special part has been re-

positioned within normal limits – according to their opinion –, so that it enables to turn into

practice the contemporary vision regarding the role of the penalty in the social reinsertion of

the persons who committed offences.

At the same time, the committee appointed for drafting the new criminal legislation

has tried and managed mostly to streamline the criminalization norms (there is only one

exception, namely the legal content of the offence of aggravated theft, which has 16

aggravating circumstantial elements) avoiding the overlaps between various criminalization

texts or the overlaps with the texts in the general part.