THE ROLE OF JUDGES IN INTERPRETING CRIMINAL LAWS

Judges should not be regarded as mere speakers of and tools in the hands of the legislature. They are as actors animating the laws enacted. The judges’ acting can be justified on three grounds: limitations of law-making, including lack of expertise in and inattention of, the being expedient of, and purposeful acts of legislature, being societies in transition, and impossibility of anticipating all cases and situations as well as the inherent indeterminacy of language in some cases; correcting the legislature’s deviance by means of interpretation based on the principle of separation of powers; and updating the meanings of the criminal laws and adapting them to prerequisites of collective life at the time of interpreting the laws. The judges’ acting reflects in three forms, i.e., exploring (vs. making) the meanings of criminal laws, effects of their fore-structures on interpretation, and formulation of the purpose of criminal laws.