Axiology of Criminal Law as a Method of Rational Criminalization

The criminalization of acts that the legislator considers criminal is the core procedure that forms criminal legislation and the foundation of the state’s criminal law policy. The generally accepted basis for criminalization is the recognition of an act as socially dangerous. Thus, today the process of criminalization has an attribute of a vicious circle in definition (Latin: circulus in definiendo). This is a situation in which the definition of a phenomenon includes the properties of the phenomenon itself: the basis for criminalization, that is, the recognition of an act as a crime, is the recognition of the act as criminal. The paralogism at the basis of the legal structure determines its inconsistency. The purpose of the paper is to identify the role of the value approach in the process of criminalization of acts. The author proposes to link the basis of criminalization with the most important (universal) values, life benefits and interests that require special protection by the state. Rationalization of criminalization requires improvement of ideas about the object of crime, which is in many ways identical to the protected (and violated) interest and good. The process of endowing acts with the characteristics of criminality and illegality must be based on the recognition of the fundamental place of universal human values, and criminal law should direct the full weight of its protective measures towards their protection.