The risk of excessive complementation in Criminal Law

• Grant number: 16/03106-2
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): August 24, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal researcher: Helena Regina Lobo da Costa
• Grantee: Chiavelli Facenda Falavigno
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Direito (FD). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The theme of this project is the risk of excessive complementation in Criminal law, which is the excessive supplementation of blank criminal laws by regulations and other administrative normative species, causing several adverse consequences, such as veiled delegation of criminal jurisdiction to Executive Power, the affront to the legality principle, the occurrence of indiscriminate error of prohibition, etc. This study will investigate what is the complementation in the punitive system, when it occurs and when we can prove that the normative complementation is excessive. The project also proposes to assess the main causes in social changes and crime policy that may have led to the increasing need of legal complementation. It is essential, therefore, to find in which areas such phenomenon may predominantly occur as environmental criminal law, economic criminal law and drugs criminal law, noting the common features of the interests protected by such rules. The research aims to address the (in) compatibility of such procedure with the guiding principles of criminal law as well as with the Brazilian criminal law constitutionally oriented. Despite the well-established legitimacy of the blank criminal law in Brazil, it is clear that its use must present limitations of form and content, such as the exact definition of the delegated part or even the obedience of certainty and determination criteria. However, in the latter part of the research, we intend to pursue various possibilities for the solution of the issue, making use of complex and multidisciplinary thinking on the analysis of the phenomenon, using for this not only the possibilities of dogmatic, but also hermeneutics, comparative law, criminology and criminal policy currently in force in the country. The methodology used is bibliographic research.