Seminário
Are there - and should there be - any justificatory defences?
26 de maio 2025 | NOVA School of Law
O seminário “Are there – and should there be – any justificatory defences?” irá realizar-se às 15h00 na Sala 7 da NOVA School of Law.
Orador
James Edwards, Universidade de Oxford
Comentadora
Helena Bolina, NOVA School of Law
Abstract (em inglês)
Some defences are justificatory. Others are excusatory. The orthodox view, in the Anglo-American tradition, is that both form—and should form—part of the criminal law. My argument here confronts that orthodoxy. I begin by casting doubt on the claim that English criminal law contains justificatory defences. I proceed to argue that it would be no objection if my doubts were vindicated: while the criminal law should indeed contain excusatory defences, the same is not true of justificatory defences. To deny that the criminal law should contain such defences is not to claim that those who perform justified acts should be convicted of crimes. It is not even to deny that criminal defences should be available to the justified. It is only to deny that the availability of a defence, to those who have committed a criminal offence, should be dependent on the existence of a justification for offending. My argument for this conclusion appeals to two principal ideas. The first is that, where an offence is legitimately enacted, and there is no bar to trial, criminal courts ought to convict offenders who offend culpably. The second is that considerations which establish that responsible agents are not culpable for offending are excusatory considerations.
Promovido pela NOVA Argumentation.