Law I / Criminal Law in Two Senses
Practice question · Fill in the blanks

Complete the vocabulary of the penal norm.

The power of the state to define offences and impose penalties is the ______. The norm forbidding the citizen to kill is, in Spanish penal usage, the ______ norm, and the norm directing the judge to punish is the ______ norm. A criminal provision that completes the description of the forbidden conduct by referring to another norm is a penal law in ______.

Word bank: ius puniendi · primary · secondary · blank · objective sense · valuation

Hints
  1. The first blank is the criminal law in its subjective sense.
  2. Spanish penal usage reverses Kelsen's labels, so the citizen gets the first one.
Show the answer

The power of the state to define offences and impose penalties is the ius puniendi. The norm forbidding the citizen to kill is, in Spanish penal usage, the primary norm, and the norm directing the judge to punish is the secondary norm. A criminal provision that completes the description of the forbidden conduct by referring to another norm is a penal law in blank.

Why

The middle two blanks are the ones to fix in memory with the warning attached: Spanish penal doctrine calls the norm addressed to the citizen primary, and Kelsen called the norm addressed to the official primary. Reading a translated text without checking which convention is in use produces confusion that looks like disagreement.

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