Principle of legality in French criminal law

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The principle of legality in French criminal law holds that no one may be convicted of a criminal offense unless a previously published legal text sets out in clear and precise wording the constituent elements of the offense and the penalty which applies to it.^[1][2] (Latin:Nullum crimen, nulla pœna sine lege, in other words, "no crime, no penalty, without a law").^[3]

The principle of legality^[1][2][a] (French: principe de légalité) is one of the most fundamental principles of French criminal law, and goes back to the Penal Code of 1791 adopted during the French Revolution,^{[citation needed]} and before that, was developed by Italian criminologist Cesare Beccaria and by Montesquieu.^[4] The principle has its origins in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which endows it with constitutional force and limits the conditions in which citizens may be punished for infractions.

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