Modificãrile aduse pãrtii speciale a codului penal de legea nr. 278/2006
Amendments brought by Law no. 278/2006 to the Special Part of the Penal Code

Summary/Abstract: The study presents the major modifications brought by Law no. 278/2006 to the special part of the penal code. The amendments in this matter can be divided into more subcategories: abrogation of a text of law, modification of punishment limits, substantial change of the content of an offence, and the apparition of new crimes. In the first category, the author notes the abrogation of the offences of insult, libel, adultery and vagrancy. The decision not to incriminate offences against human dignity was not based on any criminological study, but rather on the will to eliminate any possibility of using penal means against potential offences of opinion, especially in what concerns opinions expressed by journalists towards politicians or influent persons. However, in comparative criminal law, there are not many examples of total non-incrimination of offences against human dignity. The author asserts that, even taking into account the principle of minimum criminal law intervention, the value of human dignity still justifies criminal protection. Obviously, the penal sanction must be proportionate to the gravity of such facts, as the protection offered by civil law is sometimes insufficient as a deterrent. The possibility of an abusive appliance of the penal norm, in a given context, must not immediately lead to the elimination of such a norm, but rather to an improvement of the legal text. A second category is represented by modifications on the limits of the punishments for some offences, i.e. threat. The most important category is represented by the amendments brought to the content of some incrimination texts. This category counts the most numerous amendments to the special part of the Code, systematically analyzed by the author. A first text of law subject to modification is art. 1661 of the penal code (entitled “acts against the constitutional order”), who now incriminates “the employment of any actions aimed at the modification of the constitutional order or of the national, sovereign, independent, unitary and indivisible character of the Romanian state, if committed in an illegal and violent way “. Practically, the aggravated form of the previous text of art. 1661 has now become the basic form of incrimination. Currently, the offence holds no palliating or aggravated forms. In what regards the crime stipulated by art. 1681 of the penal code (“communication of false information”), the text of law now incriminates “the communication or spreading, through any means, of false news, data or information, if this threatens the security of the state”. The amendment brought by Law no. 278/2006 pertains to the elimination of the possibility to retain as an offence the communication of false information, if the act threatens Romania’s international relations. This is a positive step, deriving from the limitation of the cases in which the criminal law has to intervene. In the sphere of crimes against the person, the legislator

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