Criminal Law (GDL)

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Convenors: Susy Menis, Elena Loizidou, Craig Reeves
• Assessment: a 24-hour take-home examination (100%)

Criminal law is one of the core areas of legal education, considering requirements of the Bar Standards Board and the preferences of vocational SQE and Bar training course providers as well as employers in the sector. This module will ground your understanding of the substantive criminal law through legal knowledge and analysis informed by the social and moral context in which criminal law develops and operates. 

You will explore a number of themes in relation to homicide, non-fatal offences against the person, sexual offences, property offences, complicity and defences, including:

• criminal law's conceptions of personal and sexual integrity and of personal and social interests in property
• the status of general theories of criminal liability
• the conception of criminal capacity and its relationship to the avoidance of criminal liability
• the modern state and conceptions of public and social order.

Indicative module syllabus

• Basic principles of criminal responsibility
• Murder
• Loss of control
• Constructive manslaughter
• Offences against the person
• Rape
• Theft
• Complicity
• Self-defence

By the end of this module, you will:

• have a working knowledge of the criminal legal framework
• be able to evaluate and interpret criminal legal doctrines (social, political, moral foundations)
• be able to develop lines of argument and make sound judgements in accordance with basic theories and concepts of criminal law
• have a firm understanding of the basic concepts of criminal law and be able to use that understanding to address the current issues in the practice of criminal law.