Ten Rules for Building the Rule of Law or Attempts to Lock Up the Beast

Abstract

One of the possible relationships between Human Rights and Criminal Systems is the analysis and study of the tensions that exist between a State of Law and a Police State that are always in conflict. The greater or lesser fulfilment of human rights when the State applies punitive power (that factum of power, that right/power of the State to punish, to apply a deliberate quota of pain) is found in the very nerve of democracy. In the study of punitive power as a defining factor of the Rule of Law (or totalitarian), we can enunciate some basic rules that, since the publication of the classic work Dei delitti e delle pensiere by Marquis Cesare Bonesana Marchese di Beccaria, are not new, but it is always good to remember them in these permanent "security" crises. This article analyses the ontology of the punitive power of the State and sets out some rules that, with the aim of fully applying human rights, are necessary to live in a State governed by the rule of law.