The resolutions of the senate
During the republican period the senate had, in theory, no law-making powers. Its resolutions (senatus consulta) were regarded as being of an advisory character only and had no legal effect unless they were incorporated into a statute or the edict of a magistrate.
But by the close of the Republic the senatorial resolutions had, in practice, already acquired the force of law. In the course of the first century AD they continued to grow in importance and, by the middle of the second century AD, they came to be recognised as a distinct source of law.[939] This meant that senatorial resolutions now effected changes in the law directly, without magisterial sanction. The growth of the senate's legislative authority was precipitated by the decline of the people's assemblies and the assumption by the senate of their constitutional and legislative functions, as well as by the fact that magistrates came to rely increasingly on the senate's guidance in formulating their edicts.[940]As has already been noted, the emperor often created and moulded the law through action of the senate - by pushing through resolutions that conformed to his political agenda.[941] The emperor's proposal concerning the introduction of a senatus consultum took the form of a speech (oratio principis) made before the senate by himself or by an official acting in his name. The senators were then called upon to express their views and a vote was taken. But as the emperor's influence in the senate was great, his proposal was always accepted. This procedure was observed throughout the first century AD, alongside the other form of proposing senatus consulta, i.e. through a question put to the senate by a high magistrate. In the course of time, as the senate gradually surrendered to the emperor and his bureaucracy all active participation in government, its role as a legislative organ declined and the senatus consulta increasingly became little more than mere declarations of the emperor's will.
In the second century AD the senate enjoyed only the passive function of registering its approval of decrees drafted by the emperor and read to it by its representative. As the emperor's proposal or oratio and not the consultum was now regarded as the essential element in the proceedings, it became customary for lawyers to cite these orationes rather than the senatorial decrees based on them.30 Thus, by the end of the second century AD the term oratio principis came to refer to an imperial law promulgated in the senate, whilst that of senatus consultum applied only to earlier senatorial resolutions.In the first two centuries of the Principate a large number of senatus consulta were issued by which significant changes were effected in the areas of both public and private law. One of the earliest senatorial decrees of this period was the senatus consultum Silanianum of 10 AD, aimed at putting an end to the frequent killing of masters by their slaves.31 Other important senatorial resolutions of this period included the senatus consultum Vellaeanum of 46 AD, forbidding women to assume liability for debts of others, including those of their husbands;32 the senatus consultum Libonianum (16 AD), imposing the penalties of the lex Cornelia de falsis for the forging of testaments;33 the senatus consultum Trebellianum (c. 56 AD) and the senatus consultum Pegasianum (73 AD), concerning the [942] [943] [944] [945] acceptance of inheritances subject to fideicommissafi the senatus consultum luventianum (129 AD) concerning, among other things, claims of the Roman public treasury (aerarium populi Romani) against private individuals for the recovery of vacant inheritances;[946] [947] [948] the senatus consultum Macedonianum (second half of the first century AD), forbidding loans to sons who remained subject to partia potestas'?b and the senatus consultum Tertullianum, passed in the time of Hadrian, which gave mothers the legal right of succession to their children's inheritance.[949]
More on the topic The resolutions of the senate:
- The Senatorial Resolutions as a Source of Law
- The Senate
- The Senate
- The Senate
- The senate
- The role of the senate in legislation
- The senate
- The Criminal Jurisdiction of the Senate
- THE LEGISLATIVE ROLE OF THE REPUBLICAN SENATE
- CHAPTER X The Senate and senatus consulta
- PLINY THE YOUNGER IN THE SENATE, 105 ce
- INTRODUCTORY NOTE
- Senatorial Law-Making
- The Constitutional Framework
- It is difficult to provide a comprehensive and finite list of the sources of Roman law, since the Roman jurists never defined the term 'source of law' and different sources were emphasized at certain periods in the history of the Roman legal system to reflect their prominence as instruments of legal reform.