Законодательная регламентация принципов уголовно-правового регулирования в нормах статута великого княжества литовского 1588 года

Abstract

Law principles are recognized as the main ideas which reflect the meaning of legal regulation. The rules of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s Statutes of 1529, 1566, 1588 contained the legislative background of the criminal legal regulation’s principles. Despite the low level of the law’s technical development, and the high casuistic nature of the Statutes’ rules, they codified the main progressive principles of the criminal law. The subject of the principles of legality, personal liability and responsibility which are fixed in the rules of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s Statute of 1588 are analyzed in the article. The article also makes an investigation into the historical conditions of their fixation in modern criminal law. In spite of the class approach of the legal regulation in the Middle Ages, the Statute’s rules confirm the progressive ideas of the remission of penalties for lawless juveniles. The most progressive of the Statute’s rules were those which fixed the principles of the personal liability and responsibility. Developing the conception of the responsibility of guilt, the Statute fixed progressive statements for its time about the absence of reasons for imposing criminal responsibility upon insane persons.