DETERMINATION OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY USING THE OEDIPUS SCENERY AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Just like Lon Fuller’s Speluncean Explorers portray the seemingly impossibility of separating the two streams of ever flowing water that may not meet in the realm of legal jurisprudence, to wit, the positivists’ and the normative school of thoughts. On the similar vein, Oedipus underscores the inevitability of deterministic inclinations on one’s life. Oedipus was destined and determined to kill his father and marry his mother which against all odds to avert it came into reality. Consequently, this scholarly investigation is aimed at the identification of the offences emanating from the acts of Oedipus in fulfilling the dictates of nature, and to juxtapose same into judicial examination under the provisions of section 24 of the Criminal Code, to the effect that a person is not criminally responsible for acts or omissions which are independent of the person’s will. Hence, it therefore follows, that the advancements and advocacies in philosophical determinism can be used in the determination of criminal responsibility of a defendant standing criminal trial. In bringing this herculean task into practical reality, metaanalytical styles and doctrinal methods of academic investigation were adopted to buttress the intendment of the paper.