The appearance of the discretionary prosecution principle in Spanish criminal proceedings

• Autores: Vecina Cifuentes, Javier, Vicente Ballestero, Tomás
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2018
• Institución: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
• Repositorio: Revistas - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
• Lenguaje: español
• OAI Identifier: oai:revistaspuc:article/20395
• Enlace del recurso: http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/derechoysociedad/article/view/20395
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: Proceso penal; Principio de oportunidad; Principio de legalidad; Funciones del Derecho Penal; Funciones del proceso penal; Criminal proceedings; Discretionary prosecution principle; Legality principle; Function of Criminal Law; Function of criminal proceedings

Proceduralist doctrine has been debating intensively the principle of legality/discretionary prosecution principle dichotomy, without the necessary consensus about this extreme having yet been achieved to date. In Spain, the controversy still focuses on the convenience or not of incorporating now into the system the most relevant manifestations of the centennial Law of Criminal Procedure despite the successive reforms of this norm that have been introducing manifestations of the discretionary prosecution principle. Thus, this article seeks to determine if a criminal process must be informed by the discretionary prosecution principle, and to what extent it must be, constitutes, in short, an option of legislative policy that must be exercised taking into account the Constitution of each country and the role that is attributed to criminal law and criminal procedure law.