La persona jurídica como parte pasiva del proceso penal

Abstract

With the definitive collapse of the societas delinquere non potest principle (legal entities cannot be held criminally responsible) in 2010, individuals have become liable to veritable penalties. Given that the criminal process is the only suitable way for imposing penalties, hermeneutic work needs to be undertaken to adapt this process to its new liability element. In this regard, we must bear in mind that both Criminal Law and Procedural Law have, historically, been designed to attribute and prosecute individual liability, therefore the emergence of legal entities means the models, which are essentially anthropomorphic in nature, need to be adapted to fictitious and disembodied entities. The essential ontological differences existing between legal entities and individuals struggle with the need to establish a single procedural legal status for any person liable to criminal proceedings. In this regard, the right of every charged person to a trial with full guarantees must be respected, avoiding situations in which parties are left without defence, constitutionally proscribed, but without falling into an uncritical mimicry between the legal entity and the individual, which does not acknowledge their special and disparate nature.