[01] Doinel Dinuică, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, “Spiru Haret” University, Bucharest, Romania. [02] Mioara-Ketty Guiu, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, Spiru Haret University, Research Associate of “Acad, Andrei Rădulescu” Legal Research Institute of Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania.

Contrary to appearances, the crime of theft raises many complex and difficult issues, most of which have not yet been settled. Almost all essential aspects related to this crime are controversial: its definition, legal object or protection purpose, the limitation period, its delimitation from other similar crimes (such as the crime of breach of trust) etc. One of the reasons of this failure is the so-called “subjective theory of possession” which continues to dominate the civil doctrine and to have a negative influence on the analysis of the crimes against patrimony, in general, and the crime of theft, in special. It is for this reason that the authors of the present paper have endeavoured, firstly, to develop a different theory of possession, an objective one, according to which possession and detention are not “facts as such” but specific prerogatives of the patrimonial rights which differ between themselves by content (possession implies detention, but its content is much broader). Then, starting from this point, the authors have set as their purpose to offer new answers regarding the controversial issues related to the crime of theft (for example, they consider that the theft ensures protection only to legal detention thus, there is no crime of theft if the good is taken from a thief).

Possession, Detention, Appropriation, Use

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