Baudžiamosios atsakomybės senaties pateisinimo problema
The Problem of Justification of Statutes of Limitations for Criminal Liability

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses different theoretical backgrounds for the statutes of limitations and also peculiarities of legal regulation that result from these backgrounds. Special attention is payed to the theory of “Reform of Perpetrators Personality” that prevails in Lithuanian doctrine of the criminal law at the present time. This theory says that it is purposeless to impose criminal liability for the perpetrator if he or she did not commit a new crime for a long time (he or she has already lost his or her “dangerousness”), but on the other hand statutes of limitations should not be applicable if a perpetrator had committed a new crime during the period of statutes of limitations for the former one. The author argues that this theory should be regarded as theoretically insufficiently grounded and also non-functional in practice. The author also comes to the conclusion that all the processual theories do not justify existence of statutes of limitations in the system of the criminal justice either. He argues that existence of statutes of limitations in the criminal justice can be justified only by material reasons, related to the question of punishability. After a lengthy period of time imposition of criminal liability becomes purposeless because personal relationship between perpetrator and his criminal act vanishes and also social interest (including interest of a victim of a crime) in imposition of criminal liability diminishes critically. It is proposed that these provisions should constitute the theoretical background for the new model of legal regulation of statutes of limitations in the Lithuanian criminal law.

• Details
• Contents