Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana

The Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana (also Nemesis Theresiana or just Theresiana) was a penal code issued in 1768 by the Austrian ruler Maria Theresa (1717 – 1780). The penal code established a unified criminal law and criminal procedure law in the Habsburg-ruled countries of Austria and Bohemia. In Hungary, Belgium and Lombardy, however, the law did not apply.[1]

Front page of the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana

The new penal code substantially restricted the use of torture as authorized by the old code, although torture was only totally abolished in 1776.[2][3] When the code was issued, the jurist and thinker Joseph von Sonnenfels criticized the continued use of torture and capital punishment. Maria Theresa allowed him to exercise his academic freedom in this case, even if she sided against the jurist in another instance.[4]

Capital punishment would be abolished by the Constitutio Criminalis Josephina under Joseph II in 1787 (he had stopped using the punishment in practice since 1781 though).[5]

References
  1. Epstein, Klaus (8 March 2015). The Genesis of German Conservatism. Princeton University Press. p. 400. ISBN 978-1-4008-6823-0. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  2. Grell, Ole Peter; Porter, Roy; Porter, Former Professor of the Social History of Medicine Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine Roy (2000). Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-521-65196-7. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  3. Rights, United States Congress Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional (1958). Confessions and Police Detention: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-fifth Congress, Second Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 234, a Study of the Constitutional Aspects of Police Detention Prior to Arraignment and of Confessions Obtained from Suspects During Such Detention. March 7 and 11, 1958. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 654. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  4. Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara (18 January 2022). Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time. Princeton University Press. p. 537. ISBN 978-0-691-21985-1. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  5. Sellin, J. Thorsten (29 April 2016). Slavery and the Penal System. Quid Pro Books. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-61027-339-8. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
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