What is the criminal law in ancient rome?

Answer 1

The Romans did not have a systematic criminal law code. Definitions of crimes and their punishments were created by new laws and were therefore the result of separate laws issued over time. A framework for criminal cases started to develop with the establishment of the quastiones perpetuae (permanent jury courts) in the first century BC. These courts dealt with forgery of documents and coinage (falsum), extortion (repetundae pecuniae), embezzlement of public funds (peculatus), electoral corruption (ambitus), assault (oppugno), brigantage (latrocinius ), murder and poisoning, (sicariis et veneficis )and patricide (patricidis) and, later, adultery (adulterium).

There was not a public prosecutor. Private individuals made requests for permission to persecute to the president of one of these courts. There could be only one accuser per offence and if there was more than one claimant, they had to decide who should bring the persecution. The accuser had to swear an oath that the persecution was in good faith. The persecution was then formally laid and the accuser had to sign a document which bound him to follow the persecution through or risk penalties. The document also defined the jurisdictional limits of the trial. A time period was then set to allow the persecutor and the defence time to prepare their cases. A trial was dismissed if the persecutor, who was required to conduct the case personally, was absent. The accused could be represented by one or more layers. There were prosecutor and defence speeches and then prosecutions and defence witnesses were cross-examined. Finally, the case was adjudicated appointed judges appointed by the praetors (the chief justices) and acted as jurors in voting for guilt or innocence. The praetors presided over the proceedings and established a formula directing the judge as to the sentence or compensation.