Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Comparision between Code of Hammurabi and Magna Carta (Criminal)

Prof: Stan Starygin
Students' name: Key Manera & Muy Sophek
(Area of code Criminal)

We are responsible on the area of criminal code, and have read through many articles that are related to criminal on Hammurabi code and code of Magna Carta. So far we found out that Code of Hammurabi was stated very clearly about the crime and punishment than Magna Carta.

Code of Hammurabi was clearly talking about the rules and punishment such as if anyone breaks the rules so that the punishment could be as little as a fine or as big as capital punishment is to dead. Especially for the death penalty was freely awarded for robber, thief that stealing temple and court’s property, for illegal purchase from minor or slave, for selling stolen goods or receiving stolen goods and so on. For example article 8. “ If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefore if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death “ and article 6 “If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death “ and also article 22 “ If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death “.

The idea of those three articles is mainly focusing on taking someone’s property. If you do so you will be punish to dead. So from my point of view I think that, if we talking about human rights today, according to modern international law did say that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” and " No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. " so we can see clearly that the punishment on Hammurabi code is very cruel and inhuman.

It's very cruel to punish people to death by just committed a stealing crime it is too much punishment, nobody want to be a thief nor a robber it is just sometimes they are not educated and live in a bad society or it can be because of the hunger so if they don’t steal things to sell to get some money and buy food they would die or other many circumstances. So we better put punishment base on the act of stealing. For example like if we found out that thief is a educated person and with good physical ability instead of working he go to steal thing from people so this kind of act should put him in jail for a period of time and but if those thief who we found out that are very poor and in the case of if they don’t steal they can be die in this case he should be just punish in jail just for several years instead of killing.

In contract, in Magna Carta was not stated clearly about the punishment for those who committed crime of stealing for example like in article 30 “No sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or carts fro transport from any free man, without his consent “ so this article just mean that it doesn’t matter who you are, you cannot take anyone’s property without their consent . It doesn’t state clearly that what punishment will be if those sheriff or royal official take horse or carts for transportation without the consent of free man.
We can see in Magna Carta we cannot know that what the thief will deserve if they commit stealing crime or other crime because it didn’t not stated clearly about the punishment for those who commit stealing crime and other as well.

In conclusion, Hammurabi code is a very cruel code that that abuse the human rights, that every country should not follow, whereas Magna Carta is a code the serve only a group of people and did not state clearly about the punishmen

7 comments:

Sang morada said...

Hi Manera,
After I've read your area code of criminal law, i've a question would like to ask that:
As Death is practice to punish people during Hammurabi Code, do you think, which more benefit from this punishment, people or state?
Everyone comments is welcome.

Thanks

Manera said...

Thank you for the question, it's a good question. Well if we look back to that perioud of time and think whose benefit either people or state, to me I think both because the reason why there is death punishment becuase I belive that the state at that time think that wihtout strong punishment people will never get scare of doing the wrong things so putting into death will make people scare to commit any crime so country would be safe, and people will feel security becuse of beliving that thief will dare not to break in and steal thier property beacuse of strong punishment. So both can get benefit from dealth punishment.

moen savoeun said...

Dear all!

After I have read your essay, I would like to give you some comments as follow:

In the Second paragraph, you have to give examples on what you have raised and explained. Your explanation is lack of analytical examples. Each article should be interpreted clearly from the book and you should not repeat the same examples.

In the fourth paragraph, your explantion is not logical because the law applied equally to everyone in the society. If you steal the other properties, you must punish to death because the law is created to maintain social security. So when you steal, you do not obey the law then the law can punish you.

In the conclusion, you should compare which law is better; even though, they stated clearly about puchisment or did not state this.

I hope you will reflect to us with your ideas. Thanks

Commented by Savoeun and Dara

Stan Starygin said...

Manera, it is a good response to Morada's question. Why do you think then that the state chose to impose the death penalty rather than putting the convicted offenders in prison?

Stan

Manera said...

Thanks Savoeun and Dara for commented I gree with you I should have written which one is better and more example. I'll try to make a better one next time.

men ka said...

Well, by reading through the paper published by the author we have agreed some good points mentioned in the paper regarding the code of Hummarabi of the criminal law that the author raised to compare with the code of Magna Carta.
First, we agree that the Code of Hummarabi on criminal law were cruel and inhumane while it states about the punishment clearly regarding to the serious penalty, capital punishment. It does not make sense to the modern world while people understand that being human they deserve the right to life, liberty and right to security. Secondly, the code even more cruel, and unfair and even unclear because they did not mention how the amount of the property that was stolen to be put into death. So what if they just took a very tiny small property of the temple and he deserved to die? No, he should not I think, because no one is well all the time and no one is perfect. Sometimes people do not know what to do and they just do it without intention for example, the man does it because he wants to survive his children so that he steal the property of the temple.
Third, we agree that the code of Magna Carta were not clear about the description of the punishment and the crime level. It did not also mention clearly on how much things that were taken should be deserved for what punishment.

However, we would like to add something to the author that the code of Hummarabi, even though it seemed to look so inhumane and cruel, good in a way. The law makers at that time might thought that the activities of stealing and taking other property was in humane and to have the law stated it would make the society quiet and calm. We do not know whether the understanding of the people at that time might be different from now and they might classified such activities differently from what we are thinking right now while nothing is permanent. Something that we think is good at this time might be not good at another time because we give value to that.

To this point we can see that why the code of Magna Carta did not mention clearly about the size of punishment to the wrong doers. They might think that to state everything is the bunch of laws and people were lazy to look at those. It might be depended on the court, judge to measure how much level of crime people should be in jail for how many years or a life time. Furthermore, not every people understand the law so it they stated all the details, they took long time to draft and it would be thousands of article concerning about the crime so what about the other laws. As a result they did less by mentioning something in the article not so clear which they gave the duty and rights to the judge measure the guilty of the doers through the precedence.

So we think you have contributed very good paper because you described almost everything and even optimistic about human right which is more benefit to our course.

Manera said...

Thanks Stan for the question, I think that reason why the state chose to impose the death penalty rather than putting the convicted offenders in prison is because,

1. The country was controlled by the king, and the king use part of religous to control the people that in that time people was very respectfull to religious so the king dont want his people to lost faith in him so he decided to put very strong punishment to dealth for those who steal temple's property and also the decision of king no one cant deny or reject.

2. The Law was wrtiten on the stone and you can see it everyday so why do you still commit the crime if you already know that it is illegal. People have the option to choose if you want to be free from punishment so dont do the wrongdoing if you want to be punish so be a thief but you will be punish by the law that is already witten on the stone and you know what that is. so the state think that you know the law and you still break the law that mean you are ready yourself to die, so you have to punish to death "

3. in that perioud of time in criminal law the ruling principle was lex talionis which is eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb
so people spend theif life to find money how come you do nothing and steal their property so if you steal than you will be punish to death.

These are my ideas why the state imopse death punishment.