The Justification and Legal Nature of the Criminal Statute of Limitations: Some Theoretical Remarks

The subject of the analysis is the justification for the existence of the statute of limitations in criminal law, as well as the issue of its essence. The author analyses the basic theories explaining the existence of the statute of limitations, concluding that none of them alone justifies the statute of limitations. Instead, this is done jointly by the general-preventive and specific-preventive concepts, i.e. concepts derived from arguments specific to substantive criminal law. With regard to the essence of the statute of limitations, the author argues that it is not merely similar to non-punishment clauses, but is in fact such a clause, with all the consequences that this entails.