INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CRIMINAL LAW
INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CRIMINAL LAW

Summary/Abstract: As it is widely known, the first school of modern Criminal Law appeared in the late 18th century. The most representative authors of this school of thought are two distinguished scholars, Anselm Feuerbach from Germany and Francesco Carrara from Italy. Even before, Cesare Beccaria wrote his famous book Dei Delitti e delle Pene (1764), enclosing the most powerful criticism of European criminal justice systems of his time. In his essay, Beccaria expressed new ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and applied them to Criminal Law. This school is known as the Classical School of Criminal Law. The essential idea of this school is based on the presumption that every human being has a free will and is by nature given the freedom of choice between good and evil, and therefore has to be punished without exception for his wrong choices. This idea was based on the philosophical concept known as „indeterminism“.

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