Cultural Defense and the General Guilt Clause – Interpretation Proposal

Similarly to culturally determined habits such as greetings, culture reaches the deepest spheres of human activity – those related to values, behavior patterns and sanctions connected to the breach of those patterns. The Anglo-Saxon institution of cultural defense is an example of the legal system’s response to a situation of cultural conflict – a conflict an individual might experience when an internalized cultural norm is contradictory to a binding legal norm on the territory, where they live and stay. The basis of cultural defense – mitigating or excluding one’s criminal responsibility in a situation where they violate a legal norm while staying to their cultural norm – is an assumption that no one, not even the state apparatus, has a monopoly over values and behaviors related to them. One of the spheres where cultural defense could be applied is guilt. The author states a thesis that there is a possibility of a situation in which a cultural norm and its influence on an individual is so strong that it de facto disrupts their decisive process, putting them in an abnormal motivational situation. Following this thesis, the author poses a question whether there is a possibility of limiting one’s guilt because of their behavior being influenced by a cultural imperative. Furthermore, the author proposes a legal basis for the assumption – Article 1 § 3 of the Polish Criminal Code. The proposed interpretation enables an application of “cultural defense” in the sphere of guilt, without additional legislative activities.