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The author analyzes thoroughly and documentedly the legal -- penal institution of accesory to rich examples of Romanian and foreign doctrine. At the same time, the author reveals controversial aspects of the topic and different classifications of this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern doctrine of causation has received scant attention in Romanian criminal law literature, despite the current european trend. In the first part of the article we have dealt with the conception of causation by analyzing it's place within the topographic scheme of criminal offences, subsequently presenting a chronological approach of the different causation related theories elaborated throughout the years and finally reaching the modern approach of objective ascription, also known as the objective imputation theory. While exposing the first stage of the algorithm of the latter theory in the first part, the author moves on to the second part, continuing the analysis of the issue on four levels. The first part covers the materialization of the already analyzed relevant risk into a legally referred to consequence. Moving on, we will try breaking down the four groups of cases that attracted the attention of criminal law academics. These constructions try to introduce other factors into the causal analysis in order to determine their influence in the event. They may diminish or even exclude offender liability. Therefore the decisive task will be to determine which causal contribution was more "intense" or even "overwhelming." The first group contains cases in which the chain of causation is interrupted by a new intervening cause, even if the offender created a legally relevant danger for the social value. The second group deals with cases in which the victim's reckless behaviour takes place after the offender's act, i.e., the victim, after being intentionally harmed by the offender, does not take care of her wounds or refuses to receive medical treatment. The third group in our study addresses the lawful alternative behaviour of the author as a cause of criminal impunity. Even if negatively influencing the line of causation by his actions, the author will be exempted from criminal responsibility if the original, bound to happen result, was equally damaging. The fourth and last group within our area of analysis, deals with the so-called unprotected risk. German law recognises a category of cases where there is no functional causal relationship between the violation of a legal duty and the actual result, in other words, the actual result is not covered by the aim or purpose of the legal provision. Furthermore, the second level of this study explores the approach of the german author Gunther Jakobs regarding objective ascription, through the four concepts that he considered as cornerstones: the allowed risk (very similar to permissible risk), the confidence's principle (regarding the division of tasks), redress prohibition (as a reverse of punishable participation) and acting at one's own risk (concerning the victim's behaviour). Carrying on, the article synthesizes a series of three groups of particularly relevant situations, extracted from case-law. The first two groups contains cases in which both victim and offender were somehow interacting at the origin of the risk that finally injured the victim. For instance, cases in which victim and offender were dealing with a certain substance or mechanism, i.e., a medical drug, a machine, or a narcotic, and the victim ends up injured because of using the machine or taking the drug, or cases involving injury through reckless driving. This approach distinguishes between self-endangering, i.e., putting oneself at risk, which is not subject to punishment, and endangering someone else, i.e., putting others at risk, which indeed deserves punishment. The last group refers to third party imputation cases. Imputarea rezultatului in sarcina altei persoane The last section of the paper at hand points out the pros and cons of the objective imputation theory. Things are far from settled in all areas and there is considerable dogmatic uncertainty both in the literature and the case law. The author concludes by stating the main reasons why this theory could and should be applied in Romanian courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the author stresses the need to take into account the gravity of the crime committed for punishment individualization, as the gravity of the crime and the punishment are connected by an inseparable nexum, both in the abstract formulation of criminal norm - not being able to imagine the description of a deed in a norm without punishment or vice versa - and in social consciousness, always linking the punishment to the gravity to the crime, in a relationship of cause and effect. However, the author reveals and performs an extensive research of the elements actually serving in the assessment of the gravity of the crime. Thus, in order to know the gravity of the drime committed, one must assess the specific nature and particularities of the specific legal object, the character and importance of the physical or intangible object injured or endangered by committing the crime, the way the action or inaction which constitutes the material element of the offense was performed, the nature and gravity of its consequences, the way the causality report was described, the shape and degree of culpability, the motive and purpose and the circumstances of the crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]