On the Subject of the Political-Criminal Function of Legal Goods

Abstract

Legal goods are for most penal law scholars the cornerstone of the legal theory of crime as well as a tool with core dogmatic and political-criminal purposes. However, their political criminal purpose, which serves as a limit to the ruler in their job as a criminaliser, is being seriously questioned. The reasons used by the so-called «legal goods oppositors» are based on such not being a truly limit to penal law expansion. The ruler creates more and more criminal types, widens others already in force or protects unclear realities or those which are doubtedly essential to the purpose of social cohabitation. Thus, some might say that it is all about an obsolete theory incapable of successfully facing current political criminal issues. However, throughout the following lines we will claim that the so-called crisis of legal goods is due to, among other reasons, a misconception of the latter or of its abuse which empty it from its content and do not let it meet its purpose.