Indecent exposure/public lewdness

Abstract

Before establishing, from a legislative point of view, certain conducts for which sanctioning and correction the contribution of criminal law is required, any tendency to generally repress them must reveal a deep and rational comprehension, as proximal as possible to the factual reality of the consequences an antisocial attitude implies.

From the precise perspective suggested above, the criminalization of the acts specified in the following article seems not to be based on theoretically conclusive grounds, given the positioning in the structure of  national Criminal Code in force, which differs significantly from the majority of ideas or norms externalized in foreign doctrines and legal systems respectively. Thus, the aforementioned acknowledgement will be developed, for the beginning, by means of a concise presentation of the juridical treatment of indecent exposure / public lewdness in comparative law and subsequently, in the same framework, will be emphasized the main dissonances between the Romanian and foreign provisions. In support of such statements, the article will attempt to dispute, in a second chapter, which of the offences regularized by the former codification of 1969 is worthy of being considered the corresponding match for the current incrimination, even though both the legislator and the fragmentary doctrine that approach this subject tend to be uncompromising with their respective statements.

In order to provide the premises for a correct conceptualisation of the phenomenon this research examines, we state the primordial purpose of the followings is to naturally raise some doubts, because the observance of all fundamental principles of criminal law cannot be effectively carried out without a proper understanding of the factual motives that stand beyond unlawful behaviours.