Defending liberty and structural integrity : a social contractual analysis of criminal justice in the EU

Abstract

The principles of the modern criminal law in Europe date back hundreds of years. As we shall see, the first coherent treatises of criminal justice laying down many of the principles to which we still adhere appeared in continental Europe during the mideighteenth century. Enlightenment philosophers, concerned with the relationship between the state and the citizen, between the collective and the individual, found criminal justice a natural area of study. Even before then, however, embryos of principles we today hold as fundamental can be found in charters, bills and constitutions limiting the power of medieval Kings over their subjects. If we then take the concept of the criminal law, the idea that the collective can and should exact punishment for violations of certain pre-determined rules, it dates back to the dawn of civilisation.