Penal procedural law in the 1983 Code of Canon Law

The application of ecclesiastical sanctions against delinquent members of the faithful has always been regarded as a measure of last resort. Canon law provides two basic procedures for applying penalties, namely administrative and judicial. And yet, when ecclesiastical authority is faced with the prospect of applying canonical penalties, it is not always apparent which of the two procedural options should be followed.;Despite the fact that virtually all commentators on the 1917 code understood the legislator to have expressed a preference for judicial penal procedures, ecclesiastical authority seemed to have made use almost exclusively of administrative penal procedures in dealing with delictual behavior. The consequent need for clear understandings of the administrative process led to the production of a considerable canonical literature on administrative penal procedures, to the apparent neglect of a corresponding literature on judicial penal procedures. This dissertation, therefore, makes a special effort to outline the judicial procedures of the 1917 code in order to lay a better foundation for understanding penal procedure under the 1983 code.;By the time of the Second Vatican Council, there was unanimity among penal commentators that both substantive and procedural penal law was in need of significant reform. While the reform of penal law did not engender as much reflection and discussion as did other areas of the law, and although more attention was paid to the simplification of substantive penal law, some important revisions of penal procedural law were also effected. Much of this reform was animated by a heightened desire to safeguard more effectively the rights of one accused of delictual behavior while at the same time not binding ecclesiastical authority to unduly burdensome procedures.;Under the 1983 code, the legislator has again presented two options for penal procedure, judicial and administrative. Again, however, there is some disagreement as to when each procedure is appropriate, despite the fact that the legislator seems once more to have indicated a preference for judicial penal procedures. This dissertation examines in some detail the options presented under the 1983 code, and then turns particular attention to developing some of the more important aspects of judicial penal procedure in order to serve better the needs of procedural justice within the Church.