Journal of Danubian Studies and Research, Vol 5, No 1 (2015)

Abstract

For an act to fall under criminal law it is sufficient for it to meet the minimum conditions to
achieve constitutive content of the offense. However, committing a criminal act takes place, in most
cases, in a complex set of variables specific to each case, variables that, without characterizing the act
as an offense or the perpetrator's person as subject of that offence, helps determining, on one hand, the
social danger of the committed crime and, on the other hand, knowing the offender as an individual and
its social dangerousness. Mitigating and aggravating circumstances are such variables and they have a
specific impact on criminal responsibility of the perpetrator. These circumstances have a major
influence on judicial individualization of punishment because their effect is preset by the Law and acts
separately on the length or amount of punishment. This study aims both students and practitioners or
academics and highlights on one hand, the legislative solutions of the new Criminal Code and on the
other hand, the differences between the old and the new Criminal Code.