Peculiarities of criminal sanctions in the Romanian legislation of the 19th century

• In Event: EHC-WG Panel 3: Police and Sanctions in Historical Context

Abstract

The criminal sanction constitutes a fundamental and homogeneous pillar of European justice today; however, in early modern times it was marked by regional particularities, specific to the level of development of each individual state.
In this study, the author analyzes the content of criminal penalties found in the Romanian Legislation applicable during the 19th century.
The work is structured in two substantial parts: the first concerns the regulations enforced between 1801 and 1864, that were different depending on the region in which they were adopted, and the second concerns the common regulation applied in the entire State, namely the Criminal Code of 1864, that entered into force the following year, and was updated constantly, until the end of the 19th century.
As a method of analysis, the relevant Romanian regulations will be compared with the corresponding provisions from the European criminal codes and with the provisions of old Romanian legislation on the same matter. In this way, a series of local peculiarities will be identified, which constitute original features of the punishments applied in criminal trials.
Equally, the paper will determine the similarities between the analyzed regulations, in order to identify the elements of legal continuity throughout the 19th century in the Romanian Principalities, both before and after their union in 1859.
At the end of the study, the author brought together the traits appreciated as original, specific to the Romanian regulations, emphasizing that their reminiscence can be identified even today in some customs from traditional rural communities.

Author

• Sorin-Alexandru Vernea, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest