New developments in penal legislation of Vatican City State

Abstract

The state of the Vatican City and its state-legal system is an interesting and inexhaustible topic for both lawyers and historians, theologians, sociologists, political scientists and other experts who study social phenomena. For a lawyer, the specific legal position of the Vatican and the Holy See, for example in international law and their relationship with other sovereign entities, states and international organizations and other (non-state) entities, is definitely a particularly interesting question. A lot has been written about it. That is why we cannot give the impression that the internal state and legal system of the Vatican has been neglected. For this reason, the author of this paper decided to present one branch of the internal law of the Vatican City State. Criminal law definitely represents an important segment in the legal system of every country. It developed and evolved. The development of criminal law (in the theoretical and practical sense) was accompanied by changes in the penal/criminal legislation. The penal/criminal legislation of this papal "mini-state" is apparently specific. However, the paper before you will not be a discussion about the origin and nature of Vatican penal/criminal law. That will be left for another time. With the Lateran Pact and the creation of the Vatican City-State, positive Italian legislation was taken over. That legislation underwent certain changes by "Vatican law". The latest novelties in the penal/criminal legislation of the Vatican City State are the subject of this work, and the author will try to present them in a concise way and thus try to give his modest development of jurisprudential thought about Vatican (penal/criminal) law.