Senatorial Law-Making
As elaborated previously, in republican times the senate exercised great influence on legislation but it apparently did not have a formal right to directly enact legislation itself.
Its resolutions (senatus consulta) had no legal effect unless they were incorporated in a statute or magisterial edict. The last century of the Republic featured a decline in the political role of the assemblies and occasionally a magistrate’s proposal approved by the senate came into effect immediately without popular ratification. After the establishment of the Principate, an increasing number of laws originated in this way; by the end of the first century ad, the functions of the statute were assumed by the senatorial resolution.[55] Resembling the pattern followed under the Republic, senatorial decrees were couched in the form of instructions addressed to magistrates and assigned the name of the magistrate who proposed them. However, these decrees were now in most cases initiated by the emperor. From the time of Emperor Claudius (ad 41-54), senatorial decrees were increasingly composed by imperial officials and the relevant proposal was presented in the senate by or in the name of the emperor (oratio principis). The senators were then invited to express their views and a vote was conducted. However, the emperor's influence on the senate entailed the latter never failing to agree with the main premises of the proposal. As the movement towards absolute monarchy advanced, the terms of the emperor's proposal were increasingly adopted as a matter of course by the senate without even the pretence of a discussion. By the end of the second century ad, this practice was so routine that it was customary to label a senatus consultum as an oratio of the emperor on whose initiative the senatus consultum was passed. In the third century, emperors no longer submitted their proposals to the senate for approval and thus the senatorial resolutions formally ceased to exist as a source of law.In the first two centuries of the Principate era, numerous senatorial decrees were issued that effectuated important changes in the areas of both public and private law.
One of the earliest and best-known examples is the senatus consultum Silanianum of ad 10 that aspired to repress the frequent killing of masters by their slaves.[56] Important senatorial decrees pertaining to private law included the senatus consultum Velleianum (ca 46 ad) that forbade women from assuming liability for the debts of others, including those of their husbands[57]; the senatus consultum Trebellianum (c. ad 56) and the senatus consultum Pegasianum (ad 73) that regulated the acceptance of inheritances subject to fideicommissa (the fideicommissum was a request to an heir to transfer part or all of an estate to another person who was often not qualified to take as heir or legatee)[58]; the senatus consultum Macedonianum (second half of the first century ad) that prohibited loans to sons who remained subject to partia potestas (such transactions were not deemed invalid but the son could raise against the lender's claim an exceptio senatus consulti Macedoniani)[59]; and the senatus consultum Tertullianum (c. ad 130) that granted mothers the legal right of succession to their children's inheritance.[60]1.4.5
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