Descriere
This study analyzes the mitigating circumstances in Spanish Criminal Law Code, placing them in the context of an express legal enumeration system, similar to that established in Italian criminal law and Romanian criminal law. In this framework, both the doctrine and the Spanish case law emphasize the need for these circumstances to be proven with the same degree of rigor as the constitutive elements of the offense, since they directly influence the individualization of the criminal sanction.
The paper carries out a punctual analysis of each mitigating circumstance regulated by art. 21 of the Spanish Criminal Code, highlighting the content, the conditions of application and the interpretations established in the specialized doctrine, as well as in the relevant case law. This approach allows highlighting the particularities of each circumstance, as well as, in some cases, the criteria used by the courts in assessing their concrete incidence.
In a complementary manner, the study includes comparative delimitations with respect to the regulation in Romanian criminal law, where the differences in conception or legislative technique are significant. Finally, the legal nature and effects of mitigating circumstances on the criminal sanction are analyzed, with an emphasis on their role in the process of judicial individualization of punishment and in achieving the purposes of criminal law.
