How the criminal law literature has been reinforcing the culture of impunity regarding domestic violence in Romania

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Abstract

The criminal law literature has been shaping directly and indirectly public policies, institution responses, jurisprudence and mentalities in general for decades. This is a normal phenomenon which has clear benefits, as the theoretical study of criminal law has enriched the general understanding of this field in ways which are impossible to achieve in the everyday practice.
The objective of this paper is to explore how the the formation of a monolithic way of thinking in the criminal law literature has negatively impacted the way domestic violence has been approached by the legislator, by the courts and by the Public Ministry in Romania in the last thirty years. In order to analyze this topic, the paper relies on two main sources of information. Firstly, it uses the data already gathered by the authors in a previous study, which explored how the criminal law courts approaches cases of domestic violence. Secondly, it compiles the conclusions of an analysis of the Romanian criminal law literature from the last thirty years. By comparing and interpreting the two sets of data, one can draw several useful conclusions, which are to be presented at the end of this paper.

Authors

• Teodor Manea, Faculty of Law, Bucharest University of Economic Studies

• Cătălin Nicolae Constantinescu-Mărunțel, Faculty of Law, Bucharest University of Economic Studies