Abstract

The legal nature of the regulation relating to the Central Registry of Sex Offenders is controversial that has confronted scholars and jurisprudence. There are authors who have affirmed that we are facing true criminal law without its basic guarantees, while the Spanish jurisprudence has denied this nature of both the registration and the disqualification for the exercise of professions with minors that this entails. The issue is of great importance, since the rights and guarantees that an institution must carry are derived from it. Thus, if we affirm the penal or sanctioning nature of all or part of the regulation, it must respect principles such as legality or proportionality. The present assignment aims to elucidate this matter in the light of the jurisprudence of the ECtHR as well as to carry out a systematization of the criticism that this institution has raised.