September 23, 2025

The Value Content and Goals of Criminal Law

Key Points

The study finds that criminal law must prioritize the protection of human rights like life, health, and security.
Evidence indicates that universal values should be central to the criminal law framework, impacting public relations.
The methodological framework incorporates logical, axiological, dialectical, and systematic approaches for understanding socio-legal phenomena.
Recognition of human rights within criminal law is essential, suggesting a need to avoid overreach into areas better suited for civil or administrative regulation.

Abstract

The axiological approach in criminal law, as in law in general, it is an important guideline for the development of law and the state, a way of communicating the reality of the properties of the ideal desired. The objects of protection of this branch of law are numerous and diverse, which creates the need to identify the basic foundations (fundamental values) of the functioning of criminal law that correspond to modern views on social and legal progress. The purpose of this work is to study the validity of the value approach in criminal law and to search for those values that, objectified in the most important public relations, should be objects of its protection. The author sets himself the task of formulating an integrative legal public interest protected by criminal law – the most powerful tool for influencing public relations, requiring extremely careful application. The methodological basis of the study was logical, axiological, dialectical and systematic methods of cognition of socio-legal phenomena. The evidence that the most important public goods (universal values) should be protected by means of criminal law does not exclude the need for a special scientific understanding of this postulate. After all, the very universalism of any values is an unconfirmed philosophical theory. At the same time, in a modern democratic State governed by the rule of law, the fundamental foundations of society include the recognition and protection of human rights, which include, first of all, life, health, freedom and security. The value of criminal law is directly related to the extent to which its goals are subordinated to the protection of these key human needs. Attempts to control by means of criminal law those social relations that can be successfully protected by the norms of other legal branches (administrative, civil) or even fall within the scope of non-legal social norms (morality and morality), devalue the role of criminal law as the most powerful (and at the same time, the most dangerous) social regulator is deprived of the necessary emphasis on countering real crime. The basic principle of criminal law, enshrined in the law, should be the principle of economy of criminal repression.

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