European Criminal Law: Can a General Part ben Developed Through Case Law?

auteur Uno Lõhmus
tijdschrift Substantive Criminal Law of the European Union (ISSN: )
jaargang 2011
aflevering Substantive Criminal Law of the European Union
onderdeel Artikelen
publicatie datum 19 juni 2012
taal English
pagina 199
samenvatting

When defining the topic of my contribution I proceeded from the fact that commonly a distinction is drawn between the general and specific parts of criminal law. It became clear to me very soon that very rarely the issues purely related to general part of criminal law reach the European Court of Justice. This is quite understandable, as the substantive criminal law has been considered to be a sphere that makes up an essential part of the competence of a state, as it reflects the protection of the values that a particular society considers important, and the EU competence touches upon the issues relating to the general part of criminal law for the most part indirectly. Nevertheless, it is clear that the EU law has its impact on national law as a whole and, fragmentarily, on the general part as well.