The Conscientious objection

a cause excluding criminal responsibility?; Or a form of civil disobedience?

Abstract

Criminal law has dealt with a series of factual questions that operate as elements that generate aspects that seek to free the subject from a legal consequence derived from his illicit conduct. Within this heading, what in practice is known as "conscientious objection" operates, which generates a direct and conscious abstention and/or contrariety on the part of the subject to comply with a legal norm, which can generate a real affectation of the rights of third parties.

         While it is true that conscientious objection and religious belief in Mexico is recognized as a fundamental right in Article 24 of the Federal Pact, attached to various positive international treaties, such as the American Convention on Human Rights and Article 12, it is no less true that its exercise by the governed can generate tensions in the application of punitive norms such as criminal ones.

         Within these, it has been analyzed under theoretical-dogmatic positions through a trilogy of opinions, some considering it as a cause of justification, destructive of social reproach, anti-legality, the damage caused in accordance with the safeguarded legal good; others as a cause of inculpability, not reproachability to the conduct displayed, derived from an invincible error of prohibition, both destroying the sanction to be imposed for the deployment of the act; and a third current that considers it as a legitimate expression of civil disobedience that in no way can be excluded from crime, taking into account the criminally protected legal right.