The Principle of Personal Criminal Responsibility in the Laws of Ancient Mesopotamia and the Divine Religions of the Near East

Document Type : Technical-Scientific

Authors

1 Ph.D Student of Criminal Law and Criminology of Shiraz Branch of Islamic Azad University

2 Assistant Professor at Law Faculty and Human Sciences of Shiraz Branch of Islamic Azad University

Abstract

The principle of personal criminal responsibility is one of the advanced and well-known principles in contemporary criminal law, which compliance ensures justice and nulla crimen sine lege. An overview of the history of ancient Mesopotamia law, where the sun of legislation rose for the first time and its luminous ray swept away the whole world, illustrates the bitter fact that in ancient societies, the impersonal criminal responsibility which is one of the characteristics of the private vengeance period governed the criminal relations of the people. But in many of the ancient statutes of that era, the principle of the personal criminal responsibility was recognized directly or indirectly. Although the royal orders were sometimes shadowed by these laws and did not allow law enforcement. In the divine religions of the Near East, the aforementioned principle is predicted and emphasized. But in some cases, especially in the Zoroastrian and Jewish faiths, the aforementioned principle was ignored, and many exceptions violated the rights of those who had no role in committing crimes and the cycle of delinquency. In Islam, this principle was established fourteen centuries ago as one of the early rules of the Shari'a, in the book and the Sunnah, as predicted and confirmed by the Prophet (PBUH) and the infallible Imams. 

Keywords

Judgment
Volume 18, Issue 94
October 2018
Pages 139-171

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 June 2018
  • Revise Date: 03 August 2018
  • Accept Date: 03 September 2018

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