Related Papers
J. Urbanik (ed.) Culpa. Facets of Liability in Ancient Legal Theory and Practice. Warsaw 2012. 19-81.
Fault, Strict Liability, and Risk in the Law of the Papyri
José Luis Alonso
Some Remarks on Homicide and Criminal Responsibility in Ancient Greece
Laura Pepe
Abstract. In the Homeric poems – although the notion that material and causal responsibility should be separated from moral responsibility begins to emerge – the principle of strict liability predominates. This is moreover true as far as homicide is concerned; when a man is killed, whether the kill-ing is intentional or not, the victim’s relatives react with vengeance. With his law on homicide, to-wards the end of the VII century BC, the Athenian legislator Drakon was the first to consider mens rea as a criterion to differentiate the penalties. The debate on criminal and, more generally, moral responsibility becomes urgent in the last years of the fifth century, when in the end the idea prevails that a merely material and causal agent can be considered neither responsible nor, consequently, guilty. Résumé. Dans les poèmes homériques – où commence à émerger la notion que la responsabilité matérielle et causale ne peut pas être séparée de la responsabilité morale – prédomine l’idée d’une responsabilité de type objectif. Cela est vrai aussi en ce qui concerne le meurtre: quand un homme est tué, indépendamment du fait que le meurtre soit volontaire ou non, la famille de la victime réagit en se vengeant. Avec sa loi sur le meurtre, vers la fin du VIIe siècle, le législateur athénien Dracon est le premier à envisager l’élément subjectif comme critère pour différencier la peine. Le débat sur la responsabilité pénale et, plus généralement, morale, devient pressant au cours des dernières années du Ve siècle, quand prévaut l’idée que l’agent matériel et purement causal ne peut pas être tenu responsable, ni, donc, coupable.
Some remarks on "tolerant criminal law of Rome" in the light of legal and rhetorical sources
Przemysław Kubiak
Roman criminal law, as majority of ancient legal systems, is commonly considered cruel and intolerant. Most of these negative views is based on the fact that the Romans created and used a great variety of painful and severe penalties, very often accompanied by different kinds of torture or disgrace. Although such opinions derive from legal and literary sources, occasionally in their context a very important factor seems to be missing. Sometimes in the process of evaluation of foreign or historical legal systems researchers make a mistake and use modern standards, both legal and moral, and from this point of view they proclaim their statements. This incorrect attitude may lead to ascertainment that no legal system before 20th century should be judged positively in this aspect. However, the goal of this paper is not to change those statements, as they are based on sources, but rather to give examples and to underline some important achievements of Roman criminal law which, sometimes forgotten or disregarded, should be considered in the process of its historical evaluation.
Studia Prawnicze KUL
Non enim crimen dicitur, quod mortis adegit impulsus – notes on the C.Th. 15.14.14.
2019 •
Izabela Leraczyk
The article analyses the constitution issued by Emperor Honorius in the year 416, concerning the perpetrators of offences qualified as crimen as the exemption from criminal liability, in a situation when such actions were undertaken during the barbaric invasions, escape from such invasions or the rule of the usurpers. The act governs that an action perpetrated for fear of one’s life cannot be seen as crime. The article analyses specific terms used in the above-mentioned legal act, especially in the context of the contemporary legal terminology of the epoch. Moreover, it presents the historical backdrop behind the issuing of the consti-tution, together with other regulations regarding collaboration with the enemy, both volitional and under coercion.
bepress Legal Series
The Graeco-Roman Antecedents of Modern Tort Law
2005 •
M Stuart Madden
Severitas and Clementia in Punishing the Crimen Maiestatis from Principate to Dominate
Markéta Melounová
In this paper, the image of immense cruelty of emperors and their officials under the Dominate, presented with lots of details by Ammianus Marcellinus, will be discussed as an aspect of the emperors’ attitude towards the law in political charges evolving from the Principate to the Dominate. Using the example of judicial torture which should have been excluded in criminal trials of free citizens until the late Principate, and of trials mostly concerning political magic that supplied one of the most questionable sort of charges during the Dominate, the paper endeavors to demonstrate that atrocities formed part of the criminal investigation already under the Principate while death was not the only punishment for crimes associated with politics under the Dominate, even though the law recommended it.
Studia canonica
Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege: the Principle of Penal Legality in the ius vigens
2020 •
Brian T . Austin
The promulgation of the 1983 Code marked a significant step forward in the struggle for the juridic protection of fundamental human rights in the Church. The last twenty-five years have witnessed a number of significant steps backward in this regard, particularly with respect to the principle of penal legality. In order to evaluate the current status of this principle, this article describes the essential elements of this principle according to the maxim nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege and the disposition of the 1983 Code; and it identifies and classifies the derogations from this principle in the ius vigens. The author concludes that these derogations have gravely undermined the principle of penal legality and, as such, present a significant threat to the protection of fundamental human rights.
Error communis facit jus . Origins . The Roman Law , the Mid Ages and the Old Romanian Law
petru ciacli
The subject of this research is the principle of apparent validity in law. Generally speaking, the application field of the theory of appearance is limitless, jurisprudence and doctrine making its application possible in many areas of expertise. The error communis facit jus adagio is a sort of “equity axiom” which each generation of theoreticians and practitioners of law have passed on to the others to follow with fealty. We propose an analysis of the Roman law, then the Mid Ages situation and finally, the old Romanian law. The most important conclusion of this study is that any rule of law is capitalized through its applications. This research opened a larger way for considering those problems. The development of this subject is a must for the bibliography of the domain.
The Journal of Legal History
Wrongs and responsibility in Pre-Roman law
2004 •
David Ibbetson
Teka Komisji Prawniczej PAN Oddział w Lublinie
Basic Principles of Substantive Criminal Law and Identification of Their Ideological Basis in Roman Law and Canon Law
Stanislav Mihálik
In the presented paper, the author deals with the issue of the basic principles of substantive criminal law with an emphasis on their material and ideological basis in Roman law and in canon law. The author places special emphasis on the importance of Roman and canon law in connection with the possible positive enshrinement of the basic principles of substantive criminal law in the Criminal Code.
