Der Kern des Strafrechts

Tonio Walter deals with the general doctrine of crime, which includes the elements of an offence, illegality and guilt. He sees the awareness of wrongdoing and criminal capacity as prerequisites for illegality and puts the so-called legally recognized grounds of excuse into a new category of the material law with regard to discretionary prosecution. In this new system of crime - named the postfinalistische Lehre - there are only two kinds of mistakes: those which eliminate the awareness of wrongdoing and those which concern the scope of discretionary prosecution. The author deals with both of them in the second part of the book. After criticizing the prevalent doctrine of mistakes, the author suggests new provisions dealing with mistakes, which have been adapted to his new system but equally match with the current general doctrine of crime. These provisions do not differentiate according to the mistake - the elements of an offence or the prohibition as such - but rather according to the degree of its blameworthiness.