Practice question · True or false
In Spain a custom cannot create a criminal offence.
Hints
- Compare the sources of criminal law with Article 1.1 of the Civil Code.
- The requirement is that the law be written and of statutory rank.
Show the answer
True
Why
True, and the contrast with private law is instructive. Custom is a source of the general legal order under Article 1.1 CC; in criminal law the requirement of lex scripta excludes it entirely, and the requirement is read further as a reserve of organic law wherever the penalty restricts fundamental rights.
Practise The Principle of Legality
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Law I is free to start.
More questions on The Principle of Legality
- Arrange these statements of the principle of legality in chronological order.
- Why is it consistent to forbid retroactive criminal law and at the same time apply a later, milder law to…
- The requirement of lex certa binds the legislator rather than the trial judge. Why does this distinction…
- Complete the requirements of the criminal statute.
- How many identities must coincide before the principle of non bis in idem prevents a second sanction?
- The prohibition of analogy in criminal law bars any analogical reasoning whatever, including reasoning that…
- Arrange the checks a court makes under the principle of legality, in the order they arise.
- Sort each defect by the requirement of the criminal statute that it violates.
- Which are true of the requirement of lex certa?