Article 04: THE FUNCTIONS OF CRIMINAL LAW AND THE PURPOSES OF CRIMINAL SANITATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIAL STATE OF LAW

Abstract

For a safe understanding of criminal science it is important to know what theunction of the Criminal Law, its mission within the Democratic Social State of Law,
Material, inscribed in the 1988 Constitution. Criminal law, in this context, has certain functions. The first of these is the 'Essential protection of essential legal rights' by providing legitimate and effective protection the fundamental juridical property of the individual and of society. Well, in the broad sense, it is anything - material or immaterial object - that satisfies a human need, is all that has value for the human being, who presents as worthy, useful or necessary2. Among the huge number of existing assets, those most essential will receive protection through the Criminal Law, since they present themselves as fundamental legal-juridical goods to social interaction. As Alice Bianchini reports, "Criminal law should only act in the defense of legal assets essential to coexistence pacity of men (principle of exclusive protection of juridical goods), "which criminal law a fragmentary character [p. 141] " The essential legal criminal property must have explicit or implicit reference4 in the norms
constitutional order, ie in the constitutional order of fundamental human rights (not restricting itself to that expression only as provided for in Title II of CF / 88) therefore, concretizations of these maximum values "‹"‹present in the Supreme Text. As Figueiredo Dias warns, it is only in this way "that legal 'Transform' into juridical goods worthy of criminal protection or with legal-penal dignity " In this context, says Luiz Régis Prado, "the concept of legal good must be inferred in the Constitution, operating a kind of normativization of political-judicial directives