| Note: | TITLE: Criminal Justice Freedoms for Ljubljana in the European context – upon the 500th anniversary of their granting / SUMMARY: The Criminal Justice Freedoms for Ljubljana represent an important link in the evolution of criminal law. They are among the first enactments solely devoted to criminal law in the then Lower Austrian Lands and in Europe at large. Moreover, they can be considered one of the first penal sources to concurrently regulate procedural and substantive law. They belong to a group of four regulations with very similar intendment and substance that were named the Maximilian Criminal Codes (Maximilianischen Halsgerichtsordnungen) after the legislator. The Criminal Justice Freedoms granted the Ljubljana court jurisdiction to adjudicate over and execute judgements in the gravest criminal matters (Malefiz). The court’s elevated status indicates the importance and consolidation of the town’s power compared to other holders of judicial power within the broader territory, which is particularly important in terms of jurisdictional disputes. The procedural provisions of the Freedoms require the consistent prosecution and punishment of the gravest criminal offences in accordance with the defined rules and in the public interest. In contrast to other related norms, the Freedoms place special emphasis on the principle of officiality in the case of homicide. In this perspective, the Freedoms are a typical example of an early attempt to centralise power by means of the unification of law in terms of both substance and territory as well as to abolish particularism, along with the customary rules for resolving conflicts in a society. Given their intendment and substance, the Criminal Justice Freedoms for Ljubljana may be considered a precursor of the uniform criminal law for the Empire as they basically codified the same principles that were later, albeit in a more sophisticated and supplemented manner, introduced in the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina. They were already formulated under the influence of learned law and are undoubtedly the result of the reception of the Roman-canon procedure. Its fundamental consequence in the Freedoms is the accentuated role of the inquisitorial procedure together with the principle of officiality and torture as well as the related secrecy, written form and indirectness of the procedure. / KEYWORDS: criminal law, inquisitorial procedure, principle of officiality, reception of Roman law, Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, centralisation of power, public order, revenge |
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