The foundations of right not to be punished

Abstract The mental disposition of individualism and natural law advocates is the main trough of the “right not to be punished”. This right is an innovative and great disputable issue among the law philosophers of criminal. Multidimensionality and ambiguity of “right” and “punishment” have caused a wider area of aforementioned challenge. This article presents the meaning of the “right to not be punished” besides some investigations of its main philosophical and criminological foundations through descriptive-analytic method. Our research found that the “right not to be punished” is as the type of “conditional negative claim-right” and included in natural and fundamental rights of a person. Human dignity, harm and offense principles are philosophical foundations of the right not to be punished. Strain, radical (critical) and Labelling theories are among criminological foundations that form this right; they make its philosophical basis more understandable and acceptable by referring to other researches in social sciences. It is obvious that paying attention to the concept and foundations of the aforesaid right results in reasonable saving on both of criminalization and sentencing in criminal law.