Criminal Law
Man’s relationship with crime is as old as his existence on the surface of the earth. It has been with him since his settlement on the earth, as the first crime known to mankind was the crime committed by Cain, one of Adam’s sons, against his brother Abel
It must be pointed out that the principles governing the penal code were not the result of days and hours, but rather required thousands of years to fit the requirements of the eras in which they prevailed. And the pillars differ from others, and there was no unified standard for crimes and penalties, except in certain cases in societies defined in time and place. known to us in modern times.
definition of criminal law
Criminal law is a set of legal rules that define crimes and impose special punishment or measures for each crime separately. Criminal law is divided into two types of rules; The general rules called the general section, which is concerned with the general rules and theories of crime, and the special legal rules called the special section, which is concerned with the study of crime with its vocabulary, its elements, its circumstances, and the penalties prescribed for it.
Jurists and researchers differed in naming the law that collects crimes and the penalties prescribed for them. The name of the criminal law, because it is based on the identification and arrangement of the stipulated crimes. It is more of a crime law than a penal code that includes the system of measures as a criminal system. Despite this, several criticisms have been directed at this designation, as it falls short of understanding the content of the law, and the penalties and measures it includes. On the one hand, and considering that felony is a type of crime and not all crimes on the other hand, and there are those who called it the penal law, given that the penalty is broader than punishment and measures, and it is inherent in every crime.
The development of criminal law
Scholars have divided the development of criminal law into several stages based on the era in which societies have gone through, and these stages are:
The stage of individual revenge: this stage included the mobile tribes, which considered any attack on one of their members an attack on the entire tribe. And this revenge is to satisfy the victim's family or to reach a solution to reconcile the two quarreling parties on terms that they agree upon. As for within the tribe, responsibilities were distributed to the head of the tribe, who exercises his authority over his tribe. He has the power to discipline members of his tribe from simple beatings through to killing or expulsion, and after the development of society, the system of retribution and blood money appeared. The emergence of a group of other systems; Such as the system of banishing the offender, the system of abandoning the offender to the family of the victim, and the system of prohibiting murder at certain times.
The stage of revenge for the state: This stage began since the establishment of the state, which became the authority that issues punishment and exercises it on behalf of individuals. This right was limited to crimes that affect the security of the state, but it included all crimes later, and at this stage the punishment was based on The basis of atonement, the punishment was in order to please the gods with revenge for them, and then the punishment became on the criminals to avenge the group, where the implementation of the punishments was with a high degree of firmness and strictness without putting forward the idea of reforming the criminal, and it is worth mentioning that the ruling between people was not based on justice , but in view of their social positions in the state.
The humanitarian stage: It is also called the philosophical stage, and its basis is to change the punishment system from a vengeful system to a more tolerant and humane system. This stage began in the eighteenth century with the emergence of some reformers, including:
Montesquieu, who wrote The Spirit of Laws, criticized the prevailing penal system.
Rousseau is the author of the book The Social Contract, which called for reducing penalties to a minimum to protect society from the criminal and prevent him from harming others.
Cesari Beccaria, author of the book Crimes and Punishments, who saw that the basis of the penal code is to protect the interest of the group to survive and preserve its entity, and therefore it is necessary to have the right to punishment to defend its interests, by specifying the goal of punishment in preventing the criminal from returning to his criminal life and preventing people to emulate.
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