Measure of Penalty on Juvenile Delinquents Held Liable under the Penal Code

Abstract

Characteristic traits of the juvenile delinquents - persons who do not have a fully shaped personality or much life experience, and are susceptible to negative influences - are viewed as a sufficient reason for adopting separate principle of liability towards this category of offenders. The Author underlines that among basic principles of the Penal Law a significant place is taken by the determination of the offender's minimum age at which a young person stops to be a juvenile and can incur criminal liability on general terms (when an offender turned 17). According to art. 10, par. 2 of the Penal Code, it is allowed to treat a juvenile as an adult offender and punish him for an offence, when juvenile turned 15 and committed one of the acts prohibited under the regulations of the Penal Code (an attempt on the President's life, plain and felony murder, inflicting grievous bodily injury, causing a commonly dangerous situation, hijacking of a ship or an aircraft, causing disaster, aggravated sexual assault, qualified active assault on a public functionary, taking hostage or armed robbery) and the circumstances of the case, juvenile offender's stage of development, his traits and personal conditions warrant this, and when the previously applied didactic and corrective measures proved ineffective.