ABSTRACT
After analyzing the origins of the in dubio pro reo in the Roman law and in the barbar- ian one under the aspect of the in melius interpretation, the paper pauses on the benignior interpretatio in the medieval canon law, useful to save the judge from sin, providing that he would have resolved doubt on the law in favor of the defendant.
Then, the research pauses on the interpretatio benevola in the moral theology of the probabilism of the modern age, taking advantage of the thought of Sant’Alfonso de’ Liguori and the blessed Antonio Rosmini. The attention focuses on the developments of probabilism, which aimed to achieve a balance between laxity, according to which every doubt was significant to release the human being from every moral bond, and tutiorism, which was too strict when denied relevance to the ’reasonable’ different opinions, in order to legal matters as well.
The paper, therefore, examines the effects of the interpretatio benigna in the canon law codes, from 1970 to that one of 1983, without disregarding the CCEO of 1190, which, more careful to ancient canons, kept the original formula «in poenis benignior est interpretatio facienda». The conclusions rely on the comparison with the Italian criminal law system, which, under this perspective, does not seem characterized by conditions of sufficient ’maturity’ and ’serenity’ to emulate the principles on the stricta interpretatio of the penal canon law which, despite their antiquity, keep exceptional modernity.