Abstract
Rights (especially fundamental and human rights) are today used in an antithetical manner: they safeguard individual freedoms and liberties against a polity, and encroach upon these very freedoms and liberties. They can result in a limitation of the intrusive powers of the state, and in their expansion. This essay advances the “dialectic of rights” as a means to analyze these (deceptive and but prima facie) paradoxes in what I call constitutional criminal law, and it seeks to cast doubt on today’s seemingly new and seemingly liberal (freedom orientated) “desire” for the expansion and intensification of criminal law and justice. A “desire” which does not heed the dark sides of the legislation, administration and adjudication of criminal law and justice, and which rarely accounts for the transforming image of public penal power. With the dialectic of rights in constitutional criminal law, then, I seek to highlight our current societal/political transformations and how they shape the conceptualizations of criminal law, and start an inquiry into whether these transformations are justified.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Only see the analysis in Kremnitzer (2014), p. 111 et seq.
- 3.
- 4.
See Sulitzeanu-Kenan et al. (2016), p. 348 et seq.
- 5.
The term “dialectic of rights” has inter alia been used in a related, but purely theoretical manner by Menke (2009).
- 6.
“New” I do not use in a legal historical, but in a conceptual sense. It is to distinguish the liberal “desire for more criminal law” from the traditional liberal “skepticism about criminal law”. I will not explore how new in a temporal sense this desire for criminal law really is. What is more, “liberal” I use in the Continental European way to designate a political theory based on and related to freedoms and liberties. Further, I will not reflect upon whether these freedoms and liberties are primordially given (as the concept of freedom suggests) or externally constructed (as the concept of liberties suggests).—I acknowledge that my approach is rooted in German constitutional theory. Hence, even the criminalization of murder I see as an intervention into the freedom of the offender; mind, an intervention that can be (and in effect: is!) justified. In framing this as an intervention (“Eingriff”), the burden of justification rests on the state.
- 7.
As aptly put by Kölbel (2019), p. 257, where one can also find references aplenty for such affirmations of a more coercive criminal law and justice in German criminal law academia.
- 8.
This extends to non-state polities that wield criminal power over individuals, as becomes apparent in international criminal law and justice. Here, too, (human) rights are a significant means to justify the expansion of criminal powers. After all, the fight against the impunity of human rights violations is a recurring argument for the criminalization of so-called core crimes (especially of genocide and crimes against humanity), and for their prosecution beyond the state. On this offensive function of rights in international criminal law see Geneuss (2017), p. 45 et seq.
- 9.
- 10.
Also cf Menke (2009), para 11.
- 11.
This was first stipulated by Lazarus (2012a), p. 155, and I fully agree.
- 12.
This draws on the post-colonial critique against liberalism by Chakravorty Spivak (1993), p. 44 et seq., but casts—consciously so—rights-based violations not as an inevitability, but as a mere possibility, which one can counter.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
As vividly summarized by Lazarus (2012a), p. 136.
- 17.
Christine Van den Wyngaert is credited with the reference to the shield and sword function of human rights in the application of (international) criminal law.
- 18.
A normative take of constitutional criminal law is advanced by Thorburn (2010), p. 21 et seq.
- 19.
See Vormbaum (1995), pp. 734–760.
- 20.
Hörnle (2014), p. 678.
- 21.
As to a critical review of this tradition, see Vogel (2014), p. 635.
- 22.
As to a critical review of this tradition, see Chiao (2018), p. 144 et seq.
- 23.
See Kremnitzer (1999), p. 720 ff.
- 24.
Sulitzeanu-Kenan et al. (2016), p. 348 et seq.
- 25.
See Kremnitzer (2014), pp. 111 and 120 et seq.
- 26.
As suggested by Lazarus (2012a), p. 137.
- 27.
See also Rusterberg (2014), p. 87.
- 28.
See generally Menke (2009), para 11.
- 29.
By way of a brief example, think about a railway crossing attendant, who negligently fails his duties, thus causing the death of a cyclist who runs into a train because the gates were not duly closed. Most of us will not doubt that this “perpetrator” has indeed incurred criminal responsibility (e.g. for reckless homicide). But then consider that this could have been easily prevented by automatizing the gates, which the railway company did not do to save costs in order not to raise ticket prices (or to increase shareholder returns etc.). Under the autonomy principle, criminal law remains in the realm of “without alternatives,” and is freed—for good or bad!—from questioning whether relieving railway customers from rising costs (or boosting shareholders returns) justifies the risk of a cyclist’s death, and whether it is fair (or good policy) to hold a (realistically speaking, poorly paid) railway crossing attendant to personal account without duly considering prior collective failings. This case is by no way a fiction. On its (sad) real-life background see the report of the Federal German Agency for Railway Accidents on the accident in Bad Aibling on 9 February 2016: Bundesstelle für Eisenbahnunfalluntersuchung, ‘Untersuchungsbericht - Zugkollision, 09.02.2016, Bad Aibling–Kolbermoor’ (2018). http://tinyurl.com/53wpkdxw (last visited 22 February 2021).—The objection that one can bring tort or administrative action against the railway company, or that the shared responsibility of the latter does not affect the moral (and legal) responsibility of the railway crossing attendant, who was negligent in carrying out the duties assigned to him, only supports my argument: The possibility to hold the latter criminally accountable neatly shifts the responsibility of the railway company to “mere” civil or administrative—at least to mere “complementary”—liability. What is more, the language that the railway crossing attendant “is” morally (and legally) responsible obfuscates that “responsibility” rests on an act of ascription. This ascribed individualization of criminal responsibility may be warranted (make no mistake: I am not arguing for abolition), but it has to draw on concepts (like moral autonomy) that dialectically free and bind at the same time.
- 30.
Kremnitzer and Hörnle (2011), p. 132.
- 31.
Kremnitzer (2014), p. 116.
- 32.
I am not claiming that the offensive dimension of rights, or their objective dimension, or possible positive obligations of the state, necessarily result in the coercion of an individual on part of the state. But coercion is a possibility. For a similar disclaimer, see Lazarus (2012a), p. 146. For an attempt to instrumentalize positive obligations to bolster rehabilitation as the aim of punishment, see Meijer (2017), p. 145 et seq.
- 33.
One could also “state the obvious”—namely that under the dialectic of rights the state should impose criminal liability for murder or theft as these are meant to protect core rights of the victims (life and property). But then: Life and property are “below” human dignity in German constitutional law. What is more, the dialectic of rights only implies that the state can impose criminal liability, not that it should or even must do so. For example, property is something that the state can and has to regulate (e.g. under Art. 14 of the German Constitution) so that the state could decriminalize certain theft offenses (think about “stealing” food that was thrown away by super markets; note that this throwing away does not mean that the supermarket gives up its property under German civil law).
- 34.
See inter alia Isensee (2000), marginal number 83 et seq.
- 35.
See Barak (2012), p. 350 et seq.
- 36.
Cf Alexy (1996), p. 81.
- 37.
Only conceptually so, as it are public authorities that need to realize protective rights for the individual.
- 38.
See Dreier (2013), marginal number 102.
- 39.
In this respect, cf the highly instructive reflections by Chiao (2018), esp. 111 et seq.
- 40.
BVerfGE (Decisions of German Federal Constitutional Court) 133, 168. An English translation is available online at https://tinyurl.com/4p83o2cf (last visited 22 February 2021).
- 41.
On the foregoing, and the quotes, see the English translation of the judgment, supra note 41, holdings 1 to 3.
- 42.
See BVerfGE, supra note 41, para 54.
- 43.
Landau (2015), p. 667, my translation of: “Schuld wirkt strafbegründend und straflimitierend.”
- 44.
Landau (2015), p. 248, my translation of: “Das ‘Fass’ der Schuld hat also einen Deckel und einen Boden: Sowenig wie der Deckel überschritten werden darf, darf auch der Boden des schuldangemessenen Strafens nicht unterschritten werden.”
- 45.
For a warning against reading the principle of individual guilt as a constitutional acceptance of nulla culpa sine poena in Germany cf Kaspar (2014), p. 279 et seq.
- 46.
In my humble opinion, it is necessary to introduce the “separation of powers” (or rather their mutual checks & balances) into criminal law theory and doctrine. See Burchard (2019), p. 639 et seq.
- 47.
See inter alia Florczak-Wątor (2017), p. 39 et seq.
- 48.
Tulkens (2011b), p. 583 et seq.
- 49.
ECtHR (2019) Güzelyurtlu and others v Turkey and Cyprus, App no 36925/07, 29 January 2019, para 232 et seq.
- 50.
A general account of positive constitutional rights is offered by Barak (2012), p. 422 et seq., who advances a two-partite definition: “First, the government has to proactively ensure that individuals are able to exercise their constitutional rights. Thus, for example, the government must protect demonstrators of political speech from a hostile crowd. The second element is the state’s duty to prevent other individuals from limiting constitutional rights.”
- 51.
See inter alia BVerfGE 39, 1 (41 ff) - Schwangerschaftsabbruch I, and BVerfGE 88, 203 (251 ff) - Schwangerschaftsabbruch II.
- 52.
- 53.
BVerfG 25.10.2019 - 2 BvR 498/15 (my translations).
- 54.
Again, this is but a descriptive account of the dialectic of rights as we can observe it in constitutional criminal law as it develops in the jurisprudence of the GFCC and the ECtHR. This account is to shed light on the transforming image of public penal power (see Sect. 4 below). These transformations, in turn, need careful considerations, as they cater to a real expansion of criminal law and criminal justice that is fueled by a rhetoric of ideal rights and their balancing. Because of this expansionist consequences, I hesitate to embrace the argument that it is valid to argue, from a philosophical analysis of life or property, that my right to life and property creates a positive duty on the state to have an effective, impartial etc., system of investigation and prosecution limited by rights of investigated and accused persons. Or more on point: I challenge this as ideal(ized) arguments (in favor of protective duties) have to account for their real-life consequences (which may, and today: do result in the expansion of criminal law and criminal justice).
- 55.
Paradigmatically see Ashworth (2013), p. 173 et seq.
- 56.
- 57.
See Menke (2009).
- 58.
See Loick (2013), p. 300 et seq.
- 59.
Marx (1967), p. 236.
- 60.
Ibid.
- 61.
Loick (2013), p. 305.
- 62.
Ibid, p. 303.
- 63.
On “protective duties and the right to security” see also Lazarus (2012a), p. 136.
- 64.
- 65.
See generally Art. 5 ECHR and Art- 6 EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which both stipulate a right to “liberty and security”.
- 66.
See e.g. Lazarus (2012b), pp. 87–106.
- 67.
See Götz (2006), marginal number 24.
- 68.
This is disputed, but advanced e.g. by Dreier (2013), marginal number 104.
- 69.
This might not be surprising after all, especially for those who think that the philosophical foundations of modern liberal democracy (from Hobbes and Lock onwards) were founded on the right to security, which is the prime justification for the State and its prime duty is to protect security. But it is surprising for those who view fundamental rights (sans the right to security) as means to restrict, not to legitimize state powers.
- 70.
See generally Puschke and Singelnstein (2018).
- 71.
Kremnitzer and Levannon (2009), p. 255.
- 72.
Sulitzeanu-Kenan et al. (2016), p. 379.
- 73.
Florczak-Wątor (2017), p. 41.
- 74.
On the relation between security and prevention, and the paradox of prevention, which resembles in many instances the dialectic of rights, see Zabel B (2018) Das Paradox der Prävention. Über ein Versprechen des Rechts und seine Folgen. In: Puschke and Singelnstein (2018), p. 55 et seq.
- 75.
As already criticized by Lazarus (2012a), p. 151 et seq.
- 76.
See generally Brown (2000), p. 232.
- 77.
Rusterberg (2014), p. 107.
- 78.
On a comparable problem, see Brown (2000), p. 232.
- 79.
Cf Kant (1996), p. 335: “As a co-legislator in dictating the penal law, I cannot possibly be the same person who, as a subject, is punished in accordance with the law; for as one who is punished, namely as a criminal, I cannot possibly have a voice in legislation (the legislator is holy)”; also cf 6:331: “A transgression of public law that makes someone who commits it unfit to be a citizen is called a crime (crimen) simply but is also called a public crime (crimen publicum); so the first (private crime) is brought before a civil court, the latter before a criminal court.”
- 80.
As rightly argued by Kölbel (2019), p. 257.
- 81.
Paradigmatically, cf Jackson v City of Joliet (1983) 715 F.2d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1049. There, Judge Posner held that the US Constitution “is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties. […] The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not concerned that Government might do too little for the people but that it might do too much to them. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868 at the height of laissez-faire thinking, sought to protect Americans from oppression by state government, not to secure them basic governmental services.”
- 82.
On the delicate relationship between democracy and criminal law see inter alia Ferdinand Gärditz (2015), p. 49 et seq.
- 83.
- 84.
Ibid, Kindhäuser (2017), p. 382 et seq.
- 85.
- 86.
Garland (1996), p. 461 et seq.
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The manuscript of this essay was finalized in January 2020. I will not analyze the most recent jurisprudence of the German Federal Constitutional Court, most notably its decision on 26 February 2020—2 BvR 2347/15 et al.—Thank you to an anonymous reviewer, who helped me clarify my line of argumentation; and to the participants of the Virtual Workshop on the Political Turn(s) in Criminal Law Thinking (www.viritual-workshop.info), especially to Matt Matravers for his extensive comments and editorial suggestions. As usual, all faults etc. are my mine alone.
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Burchard, C. (2021). Of Forging into Swords on the Dialectic of Rights and the New Liberal Desire for Criminal Law. In: Ghanayim, K., Shany, Y. (eds) The Quest for Core Values in the Application of Legal Norms . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78953-4_3
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