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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §48.19.41.pr

Priority of Specific Penalties over General Sanctions

Passage 8422 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This section explains the legal principle that special provisions derogate from general provisions when a general sanction and a specific penalty conflict.

[PAPINIANUS libro secundo definitionum. ] §48.19.41.prSanctio legum, quae nouissime certam poenam irrogat his, qui praeceptis legis non obtemperauerint, ad eas species pertinere non uidetur, quibus ipsa lege poena specialiter addita est.
[PAPINIANUS, from the Second Book of Definitions.] The sanction of laws, which at the very end imposes a specific penalty on those who have not complied with the precepts of the law, does not seem to apply to those cases for which a penalty has been specially added by the law itself.
nec ambigitur in cetero omni iure speciem generi derogare, nec sane uerisimile est delictum unum eadem lege uariis aestimationibus coerceri.
Nor is it doubted in all other law that a special rule derogates from a general one; and indeed, it is not likely that a single offense should be punished with varying assessments under the same law.

Notes

  1. §48.19.41.prnouissime — The adverb `nouissime` here does not mean "recently" in a temporal sense, but refers to the textual position, meaning "at the very end" or "lastly." It refers to the legislative practice of placing general sanction clauses at the end of a statute.
  2. §48.19.41.prspeciem generi derogare — An accusative with infinitive clause functioning as the subject of the passive construction `nec ambigitur` ("nor is it doubted"). `speciem` is the subject accusative, `derogare` is the infinitive, and `generi` is the dative. This is a formulation of the classical legal principle that a specific rule derogates from a general rule.
  3. §48.19.41.prdelictum unum eadem lege uariis aestimationibus coerceri — An accusative with infinitive clause introduced by `nec ... uerisimile est` ("nor is it likely"). `delictum unum` is the subject accusative and the passive infinitive `coerceri` is the verb. `uariis aestimationibus` is an ablative of means ("with varying assessments"). It points out the absurdity of a single offense being punished with different penalties under the same law.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §48.19.41.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:48.19.41.pr

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