The violation of right as right that has occurred is indeed a positive, external existence, but one that is in itself null. The manifestation of this nullity of theirs is the annihilation of that violation, entering into existence just as much — the actuality of right, as its necessity mediating itself with itself through the sublation of its violation.
Through a crime something is altered, and the thing exists in this alteration; but this existence is the opposite of itself and to that extent null in itself. This nullity consists in having annulled right as right. For right, as something absolute, cannot be annulled; thus the manifestation of the crime is null in itself, and this nullity is the essence of the crime’s effect. But what is null must manifest itself as such, that is, must present itself as itself violable. The deed of the crime is not a first, positive thing to which punishment would then come as a negation, but rather something negative, so that punishment is only the negation of a negation. Actual right is now the annulment of this violation, which precisely thereby shows its validity and proves itself to be a necessary, mediated existence.
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