민주법치국가에서 형법상의 책임

This article is the korean translation of a lecture of Professor Urs Kindhäuser/University Bonn, Germany, who delivered a lecture on 18 March 2013 in the Ewha Womans University/Seoul, Korea. The German original text of this translation was already published as an article in the commemorative volume (Festschrift) for Hassemer, München (2010), and was printed again in Biomedical Law & Ethics Vol. 7 No. 1. (June 2013) Seoul, pp. 101-127. The essential contents can be summarised as follows : A criminal culpability refers to the legally constituted roles of the delinquent in a democratic society. From a legal perspective in the democratic state under the rule of law, a person occupies two roles. On the one hand, he is formally subject to the legal „Sollenssätzen“ and thus becomes a potential addressee of legal norms. On the other hand, he is also an authorized citizen who plays a part in the decree or the change of norms publicly by expressing opinions, taking part in elections, etc., and thus becomes a potential author of norms. With these two roles, the role of the norm addressee and the role of the norm author, taken into consideration together, culpability and criminal liability in the criminal law will be explicated. This paper consists of three parts. First, it analyzes the meanings of the concept of responsibility. Second, it discusses the reasons why we can accuse the delinquent in the criminal sense. Finally, it considers the connection between the criminal liability of the delinquent and both his roles as a norm author and a norm addressee in a democratic society.