Legal description and legality in administrative penalties

Abstract

This paper supports the distinction between the requirement of a strict description of criminal offences and the weaker requirement in this aspect affecting the description of administrative offences. The reasons for such a distinction become apparent once different kind of practical reasoning involved in the regulation of criminal and administrative law are considered. This explains why the article engages in the analysis of Law & Economics and its underlying consequentialist reasoning. It is suggested that an adequate legal standard to assess the description of the administrative offences may respond to the idea of 'sufficient framework of legality'.