This paper is the first part of a more extensive commentary on Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which will be entirely published in three consecutive issues of this law journal. The present work assesses the general features of the right to liberty and security as they emerge from the relevant case-law of the European Court on Human Rights. On this occasion, it underlines the purpose of this right, namely the protection of the individual from arbitrariness, and it analyses the general conditions for deprivation of liberty. It also goes on to evaluate the first two such situations of authorised deprivation of liberty enshrined in Article 5 § 1 a) and b) of the Convention.

At this moment, the question of the application of the more favorable criminal law, as compared to the previous Criminal Code, of the existence of the transitional situations, of the comparative analysis of the criminalization norms of the current Criminal Code and of the provisions of the previous Criminal Code is less and less raised, but not all decisions pronounced by the High Court of Cassation and Justice in appeal in the interest of the law before 1 February 2014 have lost their applicability, as the opinions expressed in the specialised literature, regarding the different criminalization norms, in their evolution over time, are still of interest, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Although it entered into force relatively recently, the Criminal Code has undergone a series of changes, in its content, especially in the special part, either by criminalizing new acts, or by increasing the special punishment limits, or by introducing new aggravated variants of the already existing crimes. Considering the multitude of normative acts by which the provisions of the special part were amended and supplemented, we consider it necessary to analyze the way of drafting the various norms, having as a reference point also the various opinions from the recent specialized literature, with regard thereto.

The issue of the content of the crime is treated through the prism of two criminal legislations and doctrines - of Romania and of the Republic of Moldova in the present study. The objective pursued by the authors is the substantiation of the perspective of a unique concept of approaching crime as a basic institution of criminal law in the Romanian space. The criminal legislation of the Soviet Union had an excessive impact on the evolution of the criminal legislation of the Republic of Moldova. Even today, some Moldovan criminal law institutions, including crime law, are approached from the perspective of concepts and perceptions that characterized the Soviet doctrinal system. As a result of this research, the authors, using mainly the comparative method of studying law, have argued the theoretical foundations that may constitute the basis for the approximation of the above-mentioned doctrines in addressing the content of the crime. However, the good knowledge of the issue of the legal content of the crime allows the description of the crimes by the strict observance of the quality standards of the criminal law, thus ensuring the principle of legality of the incrimination.