Practice question · Put in order
Arrange these statements of the principle of legality in chronological order.
- Feuerbach coins nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, 1801
- The European Convention on Human Rights, 1950
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
- The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789
- The Spanish Constitution, 1978
Hints
- The two oldest are twelve years apart.
- The two post-war instruments are two years apart.
Show the answer
- The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789
- Feuerbach coins nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, 1801
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
- The European Convention on Human Rights, 1950
- The Spanish Constitution, 1978
Why
Two centuries of restatement is itself an argument. A limit that reappears in a revolutionary declaration, a scholar's textbook, a post-war universal instrument, a regional treaty and a national constitution is not a technicality of drafting; it is treated as a condition of a legal order that punishes at all.
Practise The Principle of Legality
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