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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §50.16.237.pr

Principle That Double Negatives in Law Signify Permission

Passage 9051 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Gaius explains the interpretive principle that a legal text using two negative words permits rather than forbids, noting that Servius also observed this.

[IDEM libro quinto ad legem duodecim tabularum. ] §50.16.237.prDuobus negatiuis uerbis quasi permittit lex magis quam prohibuit: idque etiam Seruius animaduertit.
[By the same author, from the fifth book on the law of the Twelve Tables.] By two negative words, the law, as it were, permits rather than prohibited; and this also Servius noticed.

Notes

  1. 50.16.237.prDuobus negatiuis uerbis — An ablative of means, meaning "by two negative words," referring to the interpretive rule in Latin whereby a double negation results in an affirmative or permissive meaning.
  2. 50.16.237.prpermittit lex magis quam prohibuit — The present tense permittit (permits) is contrasted with the perfect tense prohibuit (prohibited). This temporal contrast focuses on the law's ongoing normative effect in the present ("permits") rather than the historical act of its enactment in the past ("prohibited").
  3. 50.16.237.pridque — The neuter demonstrative pronoun id with the enclitic -que refers to the entire preceding proposition (that the law practically permits by means of two negative words) and functions as the direct object of the verb animaduertit.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §50.16.237.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:50.16.237.pr

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