Unlawfulness and Countertypes as a Circumstances Preventing Its Attribution Within the Structure of Crime – Based on the Example of Polish Criminal Law

This article is an attempt to collectively characterize one of the two types of circumstances precluding attribution of unlawfulness to the perpetrator's behavior, thus exempting him from criminal liability. The author presents circumstances (referred to as countertypes) which, by way of exception, exempt certain behaviors from criminal law prohibitions. These considerations are based on the model of crime adopted by the Author, derived from the concept of conjugate norms, widely accepted among Polish criminal lawyers. At the outset, the author points to a universal nature of criminal unlawfulness, which allows him to conduct investigations based on the selected model of bearing criminal liability.