The Criminal Law Part Two (Criminal Responsibility) by Dr. Mustafa Al-Awaji

Criminal Law (Criminal Responsibility) Criminal Law (Criminal Responsibility) Author: Mustafa Al-Awaji Classification: Criminal Year of issuance: 2016 ISBN: 9786144017937 Book details Number of volumes: 1 Edition number: 1 Binding type: Cardboard reinforced Number of pages: 560 Size: 17*24 Paper type: White Printing colors: Black and white Book content - Preface Part One: Criminal Responsibility: Its Concept, Elements, Modern Trends Chapter One: Concept of Criminal Responsibility - Responsibility in its general sense - Responsibility in its criminal sense - Issues raised by criminal responsibility - The stance of the deterministic and predestinarian schools on responsibility - The positivist school’s stance on responsibility - The biological school’s stance on responsibility - The psychological school’s stance on responsibility - The social school’s stance on responsibility - Determinism in human life and its impact on the concept of responsibility - The influence of criminal sciences on the concept of responsibility - The social defense school’s stance on responsibility - The mental health perspective on responsibility - Summary of previous positions - The Lebanese legislator’s view on the concept of responsibility - The French legislator’s stance on criminal responsibility - Is criminal responsibility an objective or personal concept? - Criminal responsibility and moral attribution - Characteristics of criminal responsibility - Is criminal responsibility graded? - The opinion of mental health experts on determining criminal responsibility - Chapter Two: Elements of Criminal Responsibility First overview: The first element of criminal responsibility: Criminal error - Unity of criminal error - Criminal error and civil error Second overview: The second element of criminal responsibility: Legal capacity - Awareness and perception - Management - The medical and legal concept of criminal capacity - Is criminal capacity graded? - A comparison of the elements of criminal responsibility Chapter Three: Modern Trends in Criminal Responsibility First overview: Criminal responsibility without fault - The jurisprudence’s stance on faultless criminal responsibility - The contemporary legal opinion on faultless criminal responsibility - The criminal legislation’s stance on faultless responsibility - Summary Second overview: Criminal responsibility for the act of others - The legal basis for criminal responsibility for the act of others - Responsibility of the parent for their child - Responsibility of the surgeon for the acts of their assistants - Responsibility of the owner of the vehicle and the transporter - Responsibility of the employer or head of an institution - Responsibility for the act of an animal - Legal principles derived from previous decisions - Where is the field of criminal responsibility for good deeds? - Criminal responsibility through or by the act of others - Conditions for responsibility through or by the act of others - The special and exceptional nature of criminal responsibility through or by the act of others in court jurisprudence - Emphasis by the President of the French Court of Cassation on the exceptional nature of responsibility through or by the act of others - The French legislator’s intervention to enforce the principle of personal responsibility and punishment - Summary Third overview: Responsibility of the moral entity in criminal law - Responsibility of the moral entity in Lebanese law - Who is criminally liable? - Acting in the name of the entity or by its means - Acting in the name of the entity - The concept of the term “workers of the company” - The element of benefit in establishing the responsibility of the moral entity - Acting through the means of the company - Summary of modern trends in criminal responsibility Part Two: Those responsible for the crime Introduction - Contribution to the crime - The position of contributors in criminal law - Foreign law - Arab law - Conditions for contributing to the crime - Unity of the offense - Causal link between the contributory act and the criminal result - Unity of criminal intent First overview: The perpetrator - The physical perpetrator - The moral perpetrator - The moral perpetrator in comparative law - The moral perpetrator in Lebanese law - The perpetrator in the modern draft of French law - The mental perpetrator - The intermediary perpetrator - The indirect perpetrator - Summary Second overview: The accomplice - The accomplice and the intervenor - Equality between the accomplice and the intervenor in terms of aggravating or mitigating punishment - Aggravating material reasons for punishment - Personal or dual aggravating circumstances - Mitigating or exempting material circumstances - Mitigating or exempting personal circumstances - Criminal participation in defamation and slander crimes - Participation in murders and assaults during fights - The necessity of criminal intent in the accomplice - Third overview: The intervenor - Definition of the intervenor - Giving instructions - Strengthening the perpetrator’s resolve - Accepting the perpetrator’s offer to commit the crime for material or moral gain - Abstaining from preventing the crime: intervention or participation - Assisting the perpetrator - Contributing to concealing the crime’s traces - Providing shelter and food - Conditions for intervention - Is prior agreement a condition for intervention? - The effect of an acquittal issued in favor of the original perpetrator on the intervenor - Interference in an unintentional crime - Jurisprudence stance - Intervening in intervention - Attempt in intervention - The necessity of distinguishing several cases - Penalty in intervention Fourth overview: The instigator - Definition of incitement - Means of incitement - The instigator and the mental perpetrator - The intent of the instigator and its direction toward a specific crime - The motive of the instigator - The independence of the instigator’s responsibility - Incitement in comparative law - Penalty for the instigator in Lebanese law - The effect of mitigating or aggravating reasons on the instigator - Incitement in violation - Incitement to involve the instigator in the authority’s grip - Incitement to intervene in a crime - Interference in incitement - The union of the character of the instigator and the perpetrator Fifth overview: The concealment - The moral element in the crime of concealment - First case: Concealment as an intervention in an original crime - The material element in the crime of concealment - Concealing or harboring bandits as another form of intervention - Second case: The concealment as a perpetrator of an independent crime - The effect of knowledge of the owner’s property on the commission of the crime - Note on hiding persons - The time of knowledge of the concealment crime and its effect on the crime’s occurrence - Justification for concealment of persons and objects - Unveiling concealment of persons and objects - Concealing persons by their relatives - Exemptions and justifications Part Three: Causes of criminal responsibility exclusion Introduction of Chapter One: Absence of criminal responsibility due to lack of awareness and management First overview: Madness - Medical concept of madness - Nervous diseases and their impact on behavior - The ruling on the insane as continuously insane - Precautionary shelter - The mental patient’s status in Lebanon: Legislative decree No. 72 dated September 19, 1983 - Madness prior to the criminal act - Madness during criminal pursuit or trial - The situation in comparative law - Madness during execution of the sentence - The ruling on the periodically insane - The benefit of precautionary measures - Excluding short-term punishments in modern criminal jurisprudence - The status of a mentally ill convicted person after the end of their sentence Second overview: Dementia - Medical concept of dementia - The ruling on the mentally deficient in Lebanese law - Calculating the duration of precautionary measures - Adding a precautionary measure upon release: supervised freedom - The difference in calculating the duration of the measure depending on whether dementia occurs at the time of the crime or afterward Third overview: Intoxication and drug poisoning - The effect of alcohol on brain cells and mental faculties - Determining blood alcohol level and its intoxicating effect - The stages of drunkenness - The interaction of sugar with other human illnesses - The Lebanese legislator’s stance on alcohol as a barrier to criminal responsibility - The accidental cause and force majeure - The ruling on the drunk due to an accidental cause or force majeure Second case: Committing the crime while intoxicated due to the perpetrator’s mistake - First situation: Consuming alcohol without expecting to commit crimes while intoxicated - The perpetrator’s mistake in alcohol consumption - Criminalization of unintended crimes - Impossibility of criminalizing crimes that only have a purposeful description - Second situation: Consuming alcohol with the expectation of committing crimes while intoxicated - Probable intent - Proving the expectation - Third situation: Using alcohol as a prelude to committing a specific crime - Drug poisoning - Prohibition of drug use - Seizures caused by withdrawal in addicts Fourth overview: Intense emotional disturbance during the exercise of lawful defense - The effect of intense emotion on criminal responsibility in general - The effect of intense emotion on criminal responsibility during self-defense - Distinguishing between the case mentioned in Article 252 of the Penal Code and the case in Article 228 Fifth overview: Minors - Definition - The issue of discernment in minors as a basis for criminal responsibility - Lebanese legislation on juvenile offenders - First stage: Ottoman Penal Code - The opinion of the committee tasked with drafting the Lebanese Penal Code - Second stage: Lebanese Penal Code issued in 1943 - Third stage: Laws of 1948 and 1949 amended the Lebanese Penal Code - Fourth stage: Law on juvenile offenders of 1983 - Protective measures - Reformatory measures - Disciplinary measures - Social monitoring - Reduced penalties - New measures for protecting at-risk juveniles - Suspension of reformatory measures upon marriage of the minor - Determining the juvenile’s age and its legal impact on cases and measures Chapter Two: Absence of criminal responsibility due to the absence of the criminal act caused by a special circumstance First overview: Force majeure - Definition of force majeure - Source of force majeure - The perpetrator’s mistake as a barrier to invoking force majeure - The effect of the perpetrator’s mistake on the description of the crime - The impact of force majeure on criminal responsibility Second overview: Moral coercion - Moral coercion and necessity - The perpetrator’s mistake when exposed to coercion and its effect on responsibility - Fear does not constitute a barrier to responsibility - Intense emotional disturbance and passion do not constitute a barrier to responsibility - Sudden intense anger as a mitigating excuse Third overview: The state of necessity - The state of necessity, moral coercion, and lawful defense - The legal basis for the state of necessity - The state of necessity in law - Conditions and restrictions for the realization of the state of necessity - Conditions - Restrictions - First condition: The danger must be serious and imminent - Serious and imminent danger - Imaginary danger - Second condition: The danger must be directed against the person or property - Third condition: The perpetrator must not have intentionally caused the danger - Exposure to danger due to unintentional error - Fourth condition: The perpetrator must not be legally obliged to face the danger - Restrictions on the right to invoke the state of necessity - First restriction: The act must be capable of repelling the threatened danger to oneself or property - Second restriction: The act must be proportional to the danger - The effect of the state of necessity on criminal and civil responsibility Fourth overview: Legal mistake - Definition of mistake in general - Distinction between legal mistake and material mistake - Legal mistake definition - Presumption of ignorance of the law by anyone - The Lebanese legislator’s stance on this presumption - Ignorance of laws, administrative, or civil regulations - The necessity of distinguishing between the law that depends on knowledge for punishment and the administrative law that includes criminal sanctions - The environment’s role in ignorance of the law - Modernity of legislation and ignorance of it - Foreigners’ ignorance of Lebanese law - The impact of misinterpreting the law on criminal responsibility - Interpretation of law by the public administration - Relying on the opinion of the administration to dismiss criminal intent - Relying on court jurisprudence Fifth overview: Material mistake - Definition of material mistake - Mistake concerning an element of the crime - Mistake concerning an act constituting an unintended crime - Mistake concerning an aggravating circumstance - Mistake concerning an aggravating circumstance - Mistake concerning a mitigating or excusing circumstance - Mistake concerning the identity of the victim - Mistake concerning the victim’s characteristic - Mistake concerning the subject of the crime - Material mistake: physical or legal impossibility - Mistake by an official executing orders from superiors Chapter Three: Selecting criminal responsibility based on the nature of the offense (justification reasons) First overview: Exercising the right without exceeding limits - Limits of exercising the right - The concept of good faith as a condition for exercising the right - The concept of the right - Examples of lawful use of the right without exceeding limits - Cases considered by law as exercising the right First: In the right of discipline - Who has the right to discipline the child? - The teacher’s right to discipline - Who is the child subject to discipline? Second: Medical procedures and treatment - Limits of medical treatment according to professional standards - The doctor’s duties - Patient’s consent - Transplantation of tissues and human organs - The doctor’s position in aiding competitors Third: Sports activities - Second overview: Lawful self-defense and property defense - Definition - Legal basis for the right of lawful self-defense and property defense - The community’s delegation to the individual to defend oneself and property when unable to do so - Framework for exercising the right of lawful self-defense - Conditions for exercising the right of lawful self-defense First condition: The assault threatening the person or their property - Definition of assault - Assault on the person - Assault on property - Lebanese and French legislation - Defense of property in comparative law - Equality between the defender’s and the third party’s self-defense and property rights - The nature of the assault on the person or property - Real danger and imaginary danger - The danger must be immediate - The act of the defender after the assault Second condition: The assault must be unrealized or exceeded - The assault exceeding authority - Third condition: The assault must not be initiated by the victim - Provoking the assault and causing it due to the victim’s unintentional mistake - Assault by a lunatic, minor, or animal - Fourth condition: The necessity of the defense situation - Restrictions on the exercise of the right of lawful self-defense - First restriction: The act must be capable of repelling the assault - Second restriction: The act must be proportional to the danger - The effect of lawful self-defense on criminal and civil responsibility Fourth overview: Legal mistake - Definition of legal mistake - The distinction between legal mistake and material mistake - Legal mistake definition - Presumption of ignorance of the law by anyone - The Lebanese legislator’s stance on this presumption - Ignorance of laws, administrative, or civil regulations - The necessity of distinguishing between the law that depends on knowledge for punishment and the administrative law that includes criminal sanctions - The environment’s role in ignorance of the law - Modernity of legislation and ignorance of it - Foreigners’ ignorance of Lebanese law - The impact of misinterpreting the law on criminal responsibility - Interpretation of law by the public administration - Relying on the opinion of the administration to dismiss criminal intent - Relying on court jurisprudence Fifth overview: Material mistake - Definition of material mistake - Mistake concerning an element of the crime - Mistake concerning an act constituting an unintended crime - Mistake concerning an aggravating circumstance - Mistake concerning an aggravating circumstance - Mistake concerning a mitigating or excusing circumstance - Mistake concerning the identity of the victim - Mistake concerning the victim’s characteristic - Mistake concerning the subject of the crime - Material mistake: physical or legal impossibility - Mistake by an official executing orders from superiors