DEE Annie Erika

Block 1-D
202021854
LegHis

The Early History of Delict and Crime

I. Pre-Criminal Law Stage

• The penal law of ancient communities is not the law of crimes
• it is the law of wrongs/torts
• the injured person proceeds against the wrong-doer by an ordinary civil action and
recovers compensation - monetary if he succeeds.
• There is an immense system of compensation, which is sometimes utilized for income
gain (laws of Germanic tribes)
• In Athens and Rome - the laws that existed punished for sins. The law was administered
at Athens by the Senate of Areopagus (special religious code). In Rome, the
jurisprudence punished acts of adultery, sacrilege and perhaps murder.

II. Criminal Law Stage (True Criminal Law Stage)

Background

• BC 149
• L Calpurnius Palo carried the statute called Lex Calpurnia de Repetundis - this law
applied only to cases Repentudarum Pecuniarum (claims by provincials to recover money
improperly received by the Governor-General).
• This statute led to the FIRST QUAESTIO PERPETUA - PERMANENT COMMISSION
- a regular criminal that existed from the statute's passing until a new statute passes to
abolish it.
• Members of the permanent commission not specially nominated, but the law provides
that they be chosen from particular classes and in holding them into specific, definite
rules.
• the new Quaestio can try and sentence all persons in future
• This must be the first regular criminal judicature administering real criminal
jurisprudence.

4 PRIMITIVE STAGES OF CRIMINAL LAW

1. NO MORE just equating crimes with WRONGS AND TORTS. Each bill now is of pains
and penalties
2. MULTIPLE CRIMES COMPEL LEGISLATURE TO DELEGATE SOME POWERS
TO THE QUAESTIO
3. NO MORE WAITING FOR CRIMES TO HAPPEN BEFORE APPOINTING A
QAUESTIONE. periodical commissioners were nominated
DEE Annie Erika
Block 1-D
202021854
LegHis

4. Quaestiones no A PERMANENT BENCH -to be the ones to try all future crimes

The curious case of Quaestiones Perpetuae – Wasted Potential

• Had things been different, the Quaestiones Perpetuae would have come to be a distinct
institution, just like our preset courts of laws. But, this did not happen. Imperial
despotism destroyed this. Roans looked at these permanent commissions with disdain or
as mere depositaries of a delegated power.
• The perception that Quaestiones, even when they already became permanent, were
nothing but mere Committees of the Popular Assembly had some important legal
consequences.
• One immediate result was that the Comitia continued to exercise criminal jurisdiction by
way of bill of pains and penalties, long after the Quaestiones had been
• established.
• Comitia delegated powers but can't surrender them to the Quaestiones. Comitia and
Questions can sometimes engage in side-to-side trial and punishment of offenders.
• ONE MORE feature of early criminal law, therefore, is the dependence of
QUAESTIONES on the COMITAS and the subsequent inability to pass death sentences.

III. End of Republic and Completion of Criminal Law

• The End of the Republic was brought about by the inability to pass death sentences. This
was not viewed favorably at the time as it is in the modern period. The community at the
time thought without the death penalty, families of victims would not be adequately
avenged while similar crimes would not be deterred.

1. COMITIA CENTURIATA - allowed for capital punishment only akin to one rendered to
soldiers.
2. COMITIA CURIATA - fettered on the sacredness of a Roman citizen and shunned from
the grave penalties
3. COMITIA TRIBUTA - imposed fines only against those make offenses
4. COMITIA TRIBUTA (Assembly of Tribes) - Could not impose the penalty of death

• CRIMINAL LAW SOMEHOW COMPLETED WHEN The last Quaestiones were added
by the Emperor Augustus
o Converted WRONGS to CRIMES
o But did not remove civil remedies Except for criminal extraordinary.