The Principle of Legality in Criminal Law – The Concept of Maximum Certainty and the Concept of Supremacy of the Teleological Interpretation of the Criminal Law Norm

The principle of legality is a fundamental principle of criminal law. It is divided into four separate principles or requirements, which together represent the concretisation of the principle of legality. These are: the principle of written form (nullum crimen sine lege scripta), the principle of certainty (nullum crimen sine lege certa), the prohibition of retroactivity (nullum crimen sine lege praevia) and the prohibition of analogy (nullum crimen sine lege stricta). Together they represent an unrelated whole, within which interesting theoretical questions are raised, the fundamental dilemma being how much freedom a judge has in interpreting the statutory provisions of the Criminal Code and how he or she can interpret it without violating the principle of legality. The author also develops theoretical views on the relation to criminal law provisions and the way they are interpreted – the concept of maximum certainty and the concept of supremacy of teleological interpretation, which, in the author’s opinion, explain the often very diverse approaches to the interpretation of criminal law norms in Slovenia.

Keywords: principle of legality, legal norm, certainty of law, prohibition of retroactivity, analogy, teleological interpretation, linguistic interpretation.