French Penal Code of 1791

The French Penal Code of 1791 was a penal code adopted during the French Revolution by the Constituent Assembly, between 25 September and 6 October 1791. It was France's first penal code, and was influenced by the Enlightenment thinking of Beccaria and Montesquieu.^[1][2][3]

The principle of legality was foremost in the underlying philosophy of the 1791 Code. In the spirit of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria summarized the principles that were to be the foundation of the procedural system. In his words, "every citizen should know what punishment he should endure." As a consequence, the function of the judge was conceived as being strictly distributive: qualification of an act, infliction of the pre-set sanction. This concept was revolutionary in 1791 and clearly departed from the arbitrary processeses of the ancien régime. The Code of 1791 was straightforwar in this respect; most definitions were clear, leaving little power to the interpretation of the judge. This principle was reincorporated in the Napoleonic Penal Code of 1810, which replaced this Code.^[4]

The Code did not enforce Catholic morality; there were, for example, no laws against sodomy. Its sponsor, Louis-Michel le Peletier, presented it to the Constituent Assembly saying that it only punished "true crimes," not the artificial offenses condemned by "superstition."^[5][6]

References

1. ^ Katherine Elliot; "France," in The Handbook of Comparative Criminal Law, ed. Kevin Heller, Markus Dirk Dubber, Markus Dubber; Stanford, 2010; p. 210
2. ^ Frank Schmalleger and Gordon M. Armstrong (1997). Crime and the justice system in America: an encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 23–24. ISBN 9780313294099. http://books.google.com/books?id=HxuV5PnA0rEC&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q=%22French%20penal%20code%22%201791&f=false. 
3. ^ James Treadwell (2006). Criminology. SAGE. pp. 20–21. ISBN 9781412911337. http://books.google.com/books?id=TL-u516Bz6gC&pg=PA21&dq=Beccaria's+Classicism+%22French+Penal+Code+of+1791%22&hl=en&ei=ZQylTqeJKKTZiAKsuv1f&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Beccaria's%20Classicism%20%22French%20Penal%20Code%20of%201791%22&f=false. 
4. ^ Clavier, Sophie M. (July 1997) (DOC). Perspectives on French Criminal Law. San Francisco State University. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~sclavier/research/frenchpenalsystem.doc. Retrieved 7 May 2008. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ Jeffrey Merrick, Bryant T. Ragan, Homosexuality in Modern France, p. 82
6. ^ Jane Garrity (2006). "Mary Butts's 'Fanatical Pédérastie': Queer Urban Life in 1920s London and Paris". In Laura L. Doan and Jane Garrity. Sapphic modernities: sexuality, women, and national culture. Macmillan. p. 242. ISBN 9781403964984. http://books.google.com/books?id=iTlGvGBMxBwC&pg=PA242#v=onepage&q=%22French%20penal%20code%22%201791&f=false. 

External links

• "Full text of the penal code of 1791" (in French). http://ledroitcriminel.free.fr/la_legislation_criminelle/anciens_textes/code_penal_25_09_1791.htm. Retrieved 15 April 2008. 

Preceded by Not codified, see Ancien Régime

Penal code of France 1791–1810

Succeeded by Penal Code of 1810

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