El poder punitivo del estado y la proporcionalidad de la pena para el delito de peculado

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Punitive Power of the State or Ius Puniendi "consists of the sanctioning power it has to impose a penalty on anyone who has infringed a legal norm. This represents an emanation of its sovereignty, and not a mere subjective right to punish". (Gonzalez, 2014).

This power that a State has to impose the sanctions that correspond to each one of the crimes, allows it first of all to carry out a thorough study of the law to establish penalties according to the gravity of each crime; it is for this reason that the people in charge of making the laws must be people with sufficient preparation, with the necessary knowledge, to try not to make mistakes.

The proportionality of the penalty is nothing other than to hope that both the authorities and those who draft the Constitution and the different laws of a State do so with this in mind, precisely so as not to punish drastic minor crimes with drastic penalties and instead impose low penalties for major crimes.

The Argentine writer Eugeni Zaffaroni states about proportionality: "The principle of rationality can be assimilated to the principle of punitive proportionality since it is considered undermined at the moment of imposing penalties that are not in accordance with the unfairness caused by the commission of a crime, which must be inexorably considered in order not to further injure the principle of humanity through the imputation of irrational penalties. (Zaffaroni E., Criminal Law, General Part, 2005, p. 325).

In Ecuador, the offence of graft must be punished according to the gravity of the offence, because the damage caused is to the national treasury, which affects all Ecuadorians. As has been seen in recent years, the scandals have been at the level of the countries of South and Central America, seriously affecting their economies because, according to the investigations carried out, the damage caused is several million dollars.

The Ecuadorian State has the obligation to arm itself to prevent the crime of graft, or at least that people think twice before doing so, because they will know that the penalties that are going to be imposed are severe, to protect the economy of the State and thus establish proportional penalties for each crime that affects the efficient public administration.

The doctrinarians Günther Jakobs and Manuel Cancio Meliá, in their book Criminal Law of the Enemy, maintain that: "...there also exist processes of criminalization "the old way", that is to say, the introduction of new penal norms with the intention of promoting its effective application with any decision, proceedings leading to new criminal rules that are applied, or to the stiffening of penalties to existing rules". (Jakobs & Cancio Melía, 2003)