IS THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DEED OF CRIME (ACTUS REUS) BEING THE MAIN PRINCIPLE UNDERLYING CRIMINAL LAW ADEQUATELY OBEYED?

One of the key principles of contemporary criminal law is the principle that criminal law is the “law of actus reus” (“deed of crime”). The main thesis of the paper is a statement that there is no reason to change that. As various forms of special crime prevention and their significance have been recently expanding, both in theory and practice, “the perpetrator’s criminal law” becomes of essential importance too. The fact that criminal law has always been the law dealing with actus reus (a deed of crime) is connected with the historical concept of repayment for damages. The penal suffering, or punishment inflicted, may be a re-payment for the deed of crime, but not for the identification of the perpetrator or placing the perpetrator in a certain category of perpetrators. Accordingly, the concept of mens rea (guilty mind) relates to actus reus (the deed of crime). The law of actus reus constitutes a certain bastion safeguarding against abuses on the part of the state, and therefore it is indirectly included in many constitutions through a requirement that a deed of crime must be defined, and through the principle of guilty mind as it arises from the principle of the state of law. The author asks whether the principle of a deed of crime (actus reus) is always adhered to by the German legislator. Consequently, the following are analysed: 1) the institution of an ineffective attempt, 2) a crime as an abstract exposure to danger of a legal good, 3) statutory attributes determining motivation to commit a forbidden act, 4) the so called principle of concurrence, or time coincidence in relation to the intention and guilt, 5) sentencing, particularly in case of persistent offenders, 6) discontinuance of criminal proceedings arising from the opportunistic principle. The criticised solutions of the German law are being compared with selected provisions of the Polish criminal code