thetic reasoning being placed on a par with one another. In addition, penal law distinguishes between crimes of omission and crimes of positive action, commission, whereby the exact type of omission that Sterzel treats as being an active act cannot be construed as being identical acts (of law), because if they are so treated then their identification implies that the existing definitions of the analyzed concepts themselves have been suspended with no scientifically valid reason whatsoever.452 How can a crime defined as requiring activity on behalf of the perpetrator be identified with a crime of omission, a crime requiring no action on behalf of the perpetrator? How can an act of omission be subsumed under what by definition is its opposite, namely an active act? The only recourse left, which allows the law of contradictions to be circumvented, is a fiction.453 However, if a fiction is made use of, then the scientific line of reasoning is undermined and set aside as the premiss itself, strictly speaking, is false - a fiction disregarding facts and postulating that opposites and contradictions are identical.454 An additional practical disadvantage is that the constructive identification of omission and commission is conducted regardless of its effects upon the system of penal law as a whole.The issue is this: Can such an operation be performed with retained claims of scientific tenability? Does jurisprudence have the authority to establish principles of law on lines of reasoning that are unscientific to their nature, such as fictions? Or does jurisprudence have the authority to advocate a finding that violates law, such as an analogous construction of a penal statute? Would not such a redefinition of law bring about negative consequences for the system of penal law? And finally does not Sterzel’s line of reasoning beg the question, namely, is fraudulent non-disclosure a criminal offence according to the requisites for fraudulent conduct as worded in the Penal Code (SL 22:1)? p a r t v i , c h a p t e r 7 520 452 Ibid.: pp. 316-317. 453 See Hägerström’s definition of a fiction. Hägerström, Stat och rätt, p. 15. 454 Cf. ibid; Hägerström, “Svikligt förtigande,” p. 317.
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