Certains issues regarding the requirements for the juvenile's criminal liability

• Author: Dan Lutescu
• Position: Assist. candidate to PhD, University of Pitesti
• Pages: 162-165

162

CERTAIN ISSUES REGARDING THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE JUVENILE’S CRIMINAL LIABILITY

Assist. candidate to PhD Dan LuYescu

University of Piteşti

Abstract:

The following article debates some of the legal and social issues concerning

penal accountability of the juvenile, in order to identify the most reliable

solutions to work with this social cathegory.

Key words: penal law, legislative solutions, offending act.

Juveniles form a social cathegory with its own principles, having multiple

and important characteristics compared with other age stages studied in the social

sciences’ field. The juvenile condition is also distinctly regarded in the law domain,

being the object of study in many scientific handbooks and monographs.

Nonetheless, in the judiciary practice often appear cases involving, more or less,

directly or not, minors.

The juveniles form such a distinct cathegory in the legal analysis mainly for

the psycho-phisical state that characterises this age segment, consisting in the

insufficient development of their cognitive, emotional and intelectual structures.

The lack of life experience and self control, as well as the imaturity and the

unawareness of the importance of social values determine an psychological

incapacity, both at the intelectual level (that is of conscience) and at the volitional

level.

Being so, criminal liability of the minor cannot be applied, according to the

Romanian penal law, unless, at the moment of the offending act, he had already

reached the age of fourteen years, this legal solution being based on the absolute

presumption that, up until this age, the juvenile doesn’t reach a proper

psychological, intelectual and volitional growth which would allow him/her to fully

understand both the nature and the significance of his/her deeds or to control and

engage his/her energies in the act. The refered presumption becomes relative when

it comes to minors between fourteen and sixteen years of age, judicial authorities

being obliged by the law to establish the presence of discernrment during the

offending act, based on a psychiatric examination, and if the minor has reached

sixteen years of age, the presumption’s content changes in such way that the

presence of discernment is presumed, rather than its absence (juris tantum

presumption).

The legislative solution of establishing the age barrier for engaging penal

responsibility of the juvenile at fourteen years was endeed adopted in the vast

majority of european’s legal systems. The main exceptions to this rule are France,