Abstract

Beccaria's most known work is renowned for his fight against the use of torture in criminal investigations and trials and against death sentence. But an important part of Beccaria's reasoning concerns the concept of law and the role of the judge in applying it. The law must be simple, clear and easy to understand by any citizen. Judges should not interpret the law, their role being limited to ascertain the facts. While the fight against torture and death sentence, at least in Europe, has been victorious, very little has survived of the idea of law that Beccaria drew from 18th century Enlightenment