Nulla poena sine lege

Nulla poena sine lege (Latin for "no penalty without law", Anglicized pronunciation: 'nʌlə_'piːnə_'saɪniː_'liːdʒiː ) is a legal principle which states that one cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law. This principle is accepted and codified in modern democratic states as a basic requirement of the rule of law. It has been described as "one of the most 'widely held value-judgement[s] in the entire history of human thought. In modern European criminal law, e.g. of the Constitutional Court of Germany, the principle of nulla poena sine lege has been found to consist of four separate requirements: Nulla poena sine lege praevia There is to be no penalty without previous law. This prohibits ex post facto laws, and the retroactive application of criminal law. It is a basic maxim in mainland European legal thinking. It was written by Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach as part of the Bavarian Criminal Code in 1813. Nulla poena sine lege scripta There is to be no penalty without written law. That is, criminal prohibitions must be set out in written legal instruments of general application, normally statutes, adopted in the form required by constitutional law. This excludes customary law as a basis of criminal punishment. Nulla poena sine lege certa There is to be no penalty without well-defined law. This provides that a penal statute must define the punishable conduct and the penalty with sufficient definiteness. This to allow citizens to foresee when a specific action would be punishable, and to conduct themselves accordingly, a rule expressed in the general principle of legal certainty in matters of criminal law. It is recognised or codified in many national jurisdictions, as well as e.g. by the European Court of Justice as a "general principle of Union law". Nulla poena sine lege stricta There is to be no penalty without exact law. This prohibits the application by analogy of statutory provisions in criminal law. One complexity is the lawmaking power of judges under common law.

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Ex post facto law

An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; it may extend the Statute of limitations; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed.

Criminal law

Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation.

Law

Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions.

Subset Sum: LLL Algorithm MATH-504: Integer optimisation

Covers the Subset Sum problem and the efficient LLL algorithm for finding solutions in lattice basis reduction.