On The Liabilities Of Alcoholic Crime

Drunkenness consists of three types: physiological drunkenness, pathological drunkenness, and drunkenness from other causes such as force majeure, accident, unawareness and causes against one's will. So it is also called faultless drunkenness. On the reason why physiological alcoholic should bear criminal liability for their actions prohibited by penal law, there exist two explanations: the theory of action libera in cause, the theory of the principle of social interests. The author holds that the physiological drunkenness should be attributed to the alcoholic, and hence they should bear the full penal liability according to the punishability of their action libera in cause because when the physiological alcoholics conduct the behaviors prohibited by the criminal law, subjectively they are far from faultless and at the same time, it is the purpose of penalty and a necessity of the penal policy. Pathological drunkenness is caused by pathological reasons. It is a psychiatric disease in the guise of drunkenness. The mental disorder caused by pathological drunkenness is a psychiatric mental disorder so that the pathological alcoholic cannot be punished according to the regulations on the penal liabilities of the crimes of the alcoholic but according to the regulations on the penal liabilities of the crimes committed psychiatric patients. But if the pathological alcoholic have subjective fault in their drunkenness, they should be bear the penal liabilities according the punishability of their action libera in cause. Faultless alcoholic is not classified according to judicial psychiatry, it mainly concerns the subjective fault. Only the general principle of liability should be applied to such cases, that is, the faultless alcoholic should be punished according to legal competence. Complex as thecases of alcoholic are, our current penal law only stipulates: the alcoholic should bear penal liabilities for their crimes. This provision is lacking clearness and completeness, likely leading to misunderstanding and moreover, it does not provide whether one should bear penal liabilities for his action libera in cause other than alcoholic crimes, and if so, to what extent? Therefore the author suggests that provisions on the punishability of action libera in cause be laid down.