Responsabilidade penal ambiental das pessoas jurídicas: o entendimento dos tribunais superiores sobre a responsabilização penal dos entes morais

Abstract

From the requirements of the modern world to increment the protection of the environment, comes up, in 1988, the criminal responsibility oh the legal person, in the Federative Republic of Brazil’s Constitution. This work, therefore, studies the criminal responsibility of the legal person for environment crimes. It has the objectives of analyze the constitutional and legal devices that justify the criminal responsibility of these entities. Furthermore, this work objectives to confront theories against and in favor of the criminal responsibility oh these entities, in light of the constitutional principles and criminal principles that are essentials to the application of the Brazilian criminal law, to contribute to the debate aiming at the possibility of the juridical insecurity in the application of the environmental law. Some of the main jurisprudence that contributes for the application of the criminal responsibility of the legal person are analyzed, highlights for the legal precedents of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) and STF (Supreme Federal Court), that more recently decided for the criminal responsibility of the legal person independently of the Dual Imputation of the natural person and the legal person.