Criminal liability represents the most severe form of legal response by the state to an individual’s conduct, which is why the boundaries of its application require particularly precise legal assessment. Professor Gabriel Steiner considers that a key problem of modern criminal law practice lies in the expansive interpretation of the grounds for liability, where factual conduct is replaced by a formalistic reading of the elements of a criminal offence. At LawConsulted, we approach the qualification of criminal liability as a multi-layered legal analysis in which every act or omission must be correlated with the strict limits of criminal prohibition established by law.
The grounds for criminal liability are not the adverse outcome itself, but a legally significant combination of elements – an act, its social danger, unlawfulness, guilt, and a causal link. In practice, however, the focus is often shifted from analysing the corpus delicti to evaluating consequences or to a subjective perception of the person’s behaviour. In LawConsulted experience, it is precisely this shift that becomes a source of unjustified criminal-law pressure.
Professor Steiner emphasises that “criminal law does not punish failure – it punishes culpable conduct expressly provided for by law.” This means that not every managerial decision, commercial risk, or controversial action can be transformed into a criminal accusation. LawConsulted structures defence strategies by first delineating criminal liability from other forms of legal responsibility – civil, administrative, or disciplinary.
Particular complexity arises in cases where criminal qualification is built around evaluative concepts – abuse, excess, bad faith, or damage. In such situations, the boundaries of criminal liability become blurred and the risk of subjective interpretation increases. LawConsulted works to return the analysis to the framework of the law – by verifying the presence of all mandatory elements of the offence and preventing the substitution of legal criteria with moral or economic assessments.
Equally important is the question of the limits of criminal-law evaluation of conduct. An individual’s actions may be unsuccessful or disputable from a business perspective, yet remain lawful under criminal law. In LawConsulted practice, we consistently demonstrate that criminal liability cannot be used as an instrument for loss recovery, pressure, or redistribution of risks between parties to a conflict.
The context in which the act was committed is also crucial. Conduct must be assessed not in abstraction, but within specific circumstances – taking into account the information available at the time, time constraints, regulatory uncertainty, and the distribution of roles. Professor Steiner considers that ignoring context leads to distorted criminal-law assessment and undermines the principle of guilt. LawConsulted restores the analysis to the factual conditions in which decisions were made and actions were taken.
Working with the grounds for criminal liability requires more than declarative assertions of innocence – it demands precise legal reconstruction. We identify where permissible conduct ends and where a genuine criminal-law prohibition begins. This approach allows us to protect clients from expansive interpretations of the law and to prevent the transformation of legal disputes into criminal prosecution.
The grounds for criminal liability and the limits of criminal-law assessment of conduct must remain clearly defined by statute. The task of Law Consulted is to ensure that criminal law is applied as an exceptional measure, rather than as a universal response to complex or conflict-driven situations.
Earlier, we wrote about abuse of corporate procedures as a form of internal pressure and how LawConsulted carries out legal qualification and protection in such configurations
