Specific Features of Necessary Defence As A Circumstance Precluding the Criminality of An Act

This article examines the specific features of necessary defence as a circumstance precluding the criminality of an act, as well as the problems involved in determining the limits of lawful defensive conduct. It analyses the criteria for the existence and nature of a socially dangerous attack, the proportionality of defensive measures, as well as issues concerning exceeding the limits of necessary defence and putative defence. The article substantiates the need, in the legal assessment of defensive conduct, to take into account not only the consequences of defensive actions but also the specific circumstances of the attack, its suddenness, intensity, the relative strength of the parties involved, and the psychological state of the person acting in defence. A situational and contextual approach to determining the lawfulness of defence is proposed, aimed at ensuring a balance between the legally guaranteed right to defence and the impermissibility of causing manifestly excessive harm.

Necessary defence, exceeding the limits of necessary defence, putative defence

Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Arts. 35, 37; current version as of 13 June 2026.

Resolution No. 39 of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated 20 December 1996, “On the Application by Courts of Legislation Ensuring the Right to Necessary Defence against Socially Dangerous Attacks” (as amended and supplemented as of 14 May 2022).

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Strafgesetzbuch (StGB), §§ 32–33, Germany.

Code pénal français, Art. 122-5.

Codice penale italiano, Art. 52.

Código Penal Português, Arts. 31–32.