On crimes against the state in ancient Rome in the publications of Wacław Osuchowski

Abstract

The achievements of Wacław Osuchowski, professor of Roman law at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów, the Catholic University of Lublin, the University of Wrocław, but first of all the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, cover almost all areas of Roman law: public and private, trial and criminal law. His monographs on obligatory law constitute a particularly valuable contribution both to the Polish and global field of Roman law studies. The subject of this article, however, is to analyze his less known achievements in the field of Roman criminal law, to be more precise, the subject of crimes against the state.

Wacław Osuchowski conducted extensive research on Roman criminal law in post-war Poland. However, no major synthesis took place. Only minor studies on the system of crimes in Roman criminal law and the genesis of the so-called quaestio de repetundis (court dealing with cases of administrative malpractice) have been published. He returned to legal and criminal issues at the end of the 1970s by publishing foreign-language articles on perduellium (treason) and crimen maiestatis (insult to majesty). In the second half of the 1970s, the first version of his book Zarysu rzymskiego prawa karnego covering twenty-two publishing sheets was ready. Unfortunately, serious problems with eyes did not allow him to complete his work. In 1990, professor of Roman law, Henryk Kupiszewski, expressed his hope that Osuchowski’s students would finish their teachers’s work. Unfortunately, this monograph has not been published since the time these words were spoken. The present article aims to remind his scholarly activities in the field of Roman criminal law, hoping that the publication prepared by Wacław Osuchowski will finally see the light of day and gain its readers.