Practice question · Multiple choice
Why does Article 4.2 of the Civil Code exclude criminal statutes from analogical application?
Hints
- Ask what the citizen could have read beforehand.
- The exclusion protects the same interest as the requirement of a prior written statute.
Show the answer
D. Extending a criminal norm by analogy would punish conduct the statute did not describe in advance
Why
Because analogy in criminal law would punish conduct the statute never described, which defeats the point of requiring a prior written law at all. The exclusion in Article 4.2 CC is the civil-law statement of a constitutional guarantee: a citizen must be able to know, before acting, what is forbidden. Note that it bars only extension against the accused.
Practise Interpretation and Application
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