Legal Literacy - Get a comprehensive guide to criminal offences. Learn about its elements, theoretical basis, and the difference between monistic and dualistic views in legal practice.

The elements of a criminal offence can be distinguished from two points of view, namely the theoretical view and the view of the law. Theoretical means based on the opinion of legal experts, which is reflected in the wording of the formulation. From the point of view of the law is how the fact of the criminal offence is formulated into certain criminal offences in the existing articles of legislation. In criminal law, there are two views on the elements of criminal acts, namely:

Doctrine of the Elements of Criminal Offences: Monistic View

The monistic view is a view that sees the conditions for the existence of punishment must include two things, namely nature and action. This view provides the principles of understanding, that the notion of criminal act/offence includes the prohibited act (criminal act) and criminal responsibility/guilt (criminal responbility).

According to D. Simons a criminal offence is : An unlawful act that has been committed intentionally or unintentionally by a person who can be held responsible for his actions and which the law has declared as a punishable act. With this limitation, according to Simons, for a criminal offence to exist, the following elements…