Pessoa jurídica tem capacidade de ação? Por uma teoria acerca da responsabilidade penal de pessoas jurídicas a partir da concepção significativa da ação

Abstract

Legal entities constitute, currently, the most important and powerful group of economic actors. However, increasingly serious facts, with intense social repercussions and great negative impacts, have involved activities of companies. Thus, this work to propose a theoretical reflection about capability of acting of a legal person, recognizing the insufficiency of the classic ways of imputation in Criminal Law made exclusively for natural person, and overcoming the old Latin axiom societas delinquere non potest. A new perspective of considering this category is proposed, through a model of understanding the meaning. The meaningful conception of action is based on the philosophy of language and its theoretical bases were created by Tomás Salvador Vives Antón, establishing a further step in the evolution of legal-penal grammars. The focal point is that for Vives Antón action must be understood differently, not as what people do, but as the meaning of what they do, that is, as the meaning of a substrate. All actions are not mere events, but have a meaning and, therefore, it is not enough to describe them, but it is necessary to understand (interpret) them. Through this theoretical presentation, the objective is not only to overcome the criticisms about the capability of acting, but to contemplate the possibility of direct, proper and autonomous imputation of the legal person.