Abstract: The deviated criminal offence represents a general institution within the criminal sciences which is without express legislative consecration in the Romanian legal system. It’s existence was extracted by the academic literature and the jurisprudence from certain peculiarities of actual or theoretical case files, and raises an interesting controversy on it’s legal nature: is it a natural unit of offense, or a means of expression for a plurality of offences (as an so-called ideal, or hidden concurrence of offenses – meaning a situation where an apparent unit of offence represent, in reality, a hidden variety of offences). The academic literature has not yet crystallized with sufficient thoroughness the proper definition of the concept of deviated offence. In Romania, this criminal law institution is presented oftenly under two of its most common forms of manifestation, namely: "error in persona / error in re" and "aberratio ictus." Besides these two, however, the academic literature and - sometimes - the positive legal systems of other countries (e.g. art. 83 of the Italian Criminal Code) signal other two forms of manifestation of the deviated criminal offence, namely: "aberratio delicti" and "aberratio causae".

Keywords: concept of deviated criminal offence; legal nature; forms (variants) of the deviation; unity of offence, plurality of offence.