(p. 56) 4. Criminal law fabric
- DOI:
- 10.1093/he/9780198777663.003.0004
This chapter analyses the fabric of criminal law—rules, standards, and principles—giving examples of how each of these are used to construct the criminal law. A particular highlight, in the discussion of rules, is the importance of secondary legislation in creating offences, especially offences regulating business activity. The chapter also considers the values that the criminal law should respect, such as human rights, moral autonomy, and lifestyle autonomy. To that end, the chapter explains the harm principle, and the arguments for and against punishing ‘immoral’ behaviour. There is also an analysis of important principles of criminal offence construction and interpretation, such as the principle of strict construction, and the authoritarian principle.
Access to the complete content on Law Trove requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access code, please see the information provided with the code or instructions printed within the title for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.