The depravation of the right of occupying certain functions or of practicing a certain activity as a penal punishment was known both in the old and modern penal legislature. The present national penal legislature also provides the discussed punishment. This situation demonstrates eloquently that the given punishment plays an important role in the state’s coercive policy. Being a rights’ privative punishment, it mostly aims to impede the convict to have further access to the function or activity that he used for criminal purposes, against the legal stipulations. Although this is a punishment rooted in the legislature of many states, event nowadays, the jurist-scientists do not have a single position regarding the juridical nature of this punishment - a fact that we tried to clarify in the present study. Analyzing the content of depravation of the right of occupying certain functions or of practicing a certain activity, we came to the conclusion that some legislative deficiencies make impossible a more extensive and efficient application of this punishment. As a result we made some law proposals that, if applied, would improve the situation and would transform the named punishment in a real alternative to the privation of freedom.