About: law enforcement procedures
For other uses, see The Criminal Code.
the Italian criminal code of honor
A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might be imposed for these offences, and some general provisions (such as definitions and prohibitions on retroactive prosecution).[1]
Criminal codes are relatively common in civil law jurisdictions, which tend to build legal systems around codes and principles which are relatively abstract and apply them on a case-by-case basis. Conversely they are not as common in common law jurisdictions.
The proposed introduction of a criminal code in England and Wales was a significant project of the Law Commission from 1968 to 2008. Due to the strong tradition of legal precedent in the jurisdiction and consequently the large number of binding legal judgements and ambiguous 'common law offences', as well as the often inconsistent nature of English law,Template:Cn the creation of a satisfactory code became very difficult. The project was officially abandoned in 2008 although as of 2009 it has been revived.[2]
A statutory Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee for Irish criminal law met from 2007 to 2010 and its Draft Criminal Code and Commentary was published in 2011.[3][4]
In the United States, a Model Penal Code exists which is not itself law but which provides the basis for the criminal law of many states. Individual states often choose to make use of criminal codes which are often based, to a varying extent, on the model code.[5] Title 18 of the United States Code is the criminal code for federal crimes.[6] However, Title 18 does not contain many of the general provisions concerning criminal law that are found in the criminal codes of many so-called "civil law" countries.
Criminal codes are generally supported for their introduction of consistency to legal systems and for making the criminal law more accessible to laypeople.[7] A code may help avoid a chilling effect where legislation and case law appears to be either inaccessible or beyond comprehension to non-lawyers. Alternatively critics have argued that codes are too rigid and that they fail to provide enough flexibility for the law to be effective.
Jurisdictions of many countries, such as Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States, use different penal codes.
By country
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Algeria
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Argentina
- Template:Flagicon Australian criminal codes
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Austria
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Belarus
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Brazil
- Template:Flagicon British Virgin Islands Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code (Canada)
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Chile
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China (zh)
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of the Czech Republic (2009)
- Template:Flagicon Danish Penal Code (Denmark)
- Template:Flagicon Egyptian Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon English Criminal Code, a draft has existed since 1989 but, though debated since 1818, has never been enactedTemplate:Cn
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Finland
- Template:Flagicon French Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon German Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Hungarian Penal Code in English, status of 18 August 2005 ; Operative Hungarian Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon General Penal Code (Iceland)
- Template:Flagicon Indian Penal Code[8] and Code of Criminal Procedure[9]
- Template:Flagicon Indonesian Criminal Code (Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana) and Code of Criminal Procedure (Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Acara Pidana)
- Template:Flagicon Israeli Penal Law, 5737-1977
- Template:Flagicon Iranian Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Iraqi Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon Italian Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Japan
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Macau
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code (Malaysia), enacted in 1936.
- Template:Flagicon Maldives Penal Code, enacted in 1968. Revised on 16 July 2015.
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Malta, enacted in 1854.
- Template:Flagicon Mexican Penal Code, enacted on August 14, 1931.
- Template:Flagicon Myanmar Penal Code, enacted on 1 May 1861
- Template:Flagicon General Code of Nepal
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of the Netherlands (Wetboek van Strafrecht)
- Template:Flagicon New Zealand Crimes Act 1961
- Template:Flagicon Nigerian Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Pakistan Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
- Template:Flagicon Polish Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Portugal
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Romania
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Russia
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Saudi Arabia
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of South Korea
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Sri Lanka
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of Singapore
- Template:Flagicon Penal Code of South Africa
- Template:Flagicon Spanish Criminal Code, enacted for the first time in 1822. Current version dates back to 1995.
- Template:Flagicon Swiss Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Syrian Penal Code
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Thailand
- Template:Flagicon Turkish Penal Code (also see its articles 301 and 312)
- Template:Flagicon Criminal Code of Ukraine
- Template:Flagicon British Criminal Code
- Template:Flagicon Title 18 of the United States Code
- Template:Flagicon Model Penal Code by the American Law Institute
- Template:Flagicon List of U.S. state statutory codes
- Template:Flagicon Vietnamese Penal Code, first enacted in 1985[10]
See also
References
- ↑ French Penal Code (ToC). LegiFrance (Eng translation).
- ↑ Newsletter. Law Commission.
- ↑ Template:Cite press release
- ↑ Draft Criminal Code and Commentary. Department of Justice and Equality(31 May 2010). Retrieved 27 October 2018.
- ↑ Introduction to the Model Penal Code, Robinson, Paul.
- ↑ United States Code (Title 18). GPO.
- ↑ Law Commission.
- ↑ Indian Penal Code.
- ↑ Code of Criminal Procedure, India.
- ↑ Vietnamese Penal Code 1999 - full text in English. vbpl.vn. Retrieved 5 January 2022.