Legal irresponsibility
Authors: Buzescu Gheorghe 
Published: January 2025

Committing a crime always creates an imbalance in society, requiring a reaction of "self-defense" from it. From the creation of the first forms of state organization, the task of punishing those who violated the norms of social coexistence was taken over by the state, no longer left exclusively to the injured parties. Initially, there was no clear distinction between forms of liability, with civil and criminal liability often conflated. Later, this distinction was made, with the state assuming the responsibility for criminal liability, while civil liability remained primarily the responsibility of the injured parties. It is indisputable that throughout history, madness has been a cause for excluding the culpability of the perpetrator. Thus, since antiquity, insane individuals were not subject to criminal punishment but could be held civilly liable. Roman law did not punish the insane. Likewise, irresponsibility was a cause for excluding criminal wrongdoing in both canon law and barbarian law. However, during the Middle Ages, some mentally ill individuals were regarded as "possessed by the devil," a classification that attracted harsher penalties than for sane individuals. The concept of not punishing irresponsible individuals due to a lack of discernment became widely accepted later, during the Renaissance, under the influence of humanist ideas. In doctrine, criminal liability is defined as the most severe form of legal liability, involving the obligation of an individual to answer before the criminal investigation bodies and then before the court for acts committed that are provided for in criminal law, the obligation to endure coercive measures prescribed by law for committing the crime, and the obligation to serve the imposed penalty. According to the Criminal Code, "a crime is the sole basis of criminal liability," with the crime being the cause of criminal liability, and the application of criminal sanctions as its consequence. Thus, Article 15 paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code outlines the essential features of a crime: typicity (the act must be provided for by criminal law both in its subjective and objective aspects), unlawfulness (the act must be unjustified and illicit), and culpability. These three conditions must be cumulatively met; the absence of any of them eliminates criminal liability. This paper necessitates a profound analysis of irresponsibility from both a criminal and psychological perspective, as it holds significant importance in the institution of criminal liability. For an act stipulated by criminal law to constitute a crime, the perpetrator must be in full possession of their mental faculties, capable of understanding their conduct and its consequences. Consequently, human behavior can be restricted by legal norms only when it is exhibited by an individual capable of controlling their actions. Therefore, in the absence of the biopsychophysical aptitude necessary and indispensable to a mentally healthy individual, such a person cannot become the subject of a juridical-criminal constraint relationship, as they are considered irresponsible. Criminal law exclusively sanctions individuals with appropriate behavior within the limits of normality.