Hammurabi’S Code and Other Early forms of regulation

Early Forms of Regulation

Early forms of regulation include, among others, Hammurabi, Lipit-Ishtar, and Hittite legislation.

The Hammurabi law specified that he or she could pay him or her back if a person ruined the object of another person. The legislation never specified the sum, however, suggesting that it was the job of the magistrate to settle on the amount to be paid back. For eg, if one borrowed sandals from another man and was reckless and the sandals were missing or broken, the accused would pay the loan another pair. This law was, however, comprehensive and, unlike the laws before it, was used for quite a long time. This legislation had some contradictions, though, which were extreme. For starters, if you hit a pregnant woman in order the woman loses her unborn child and the woman dies in the process, then the perpetrator’s daughter was killed. The problem with this law was that it did not mention what would happen to the criminal if the offender had no girl child.

Lipit-Ishtar Law

Lipit-Ishtar law. They were commercialized in nature for example, if a man’s legal wife did not bear him a child and the man had a sexual affair with a prostitute and the prostitute bore him a child then the man send clothing, oil, and grain among other things, and the bastard would be the heir as long as the legal wife doesn’t bear a child. However, the prostitute wouldn’t live in the same homestead as the ranking wife as long as she is alive. His laws were extensive and probably acted as an extension of the criminal law. Also, if a slave girl escapes and is confirmed to live in someone’s house, then the person who shelters her will have to offer one of his slaves to replace her in her master’s homestead. If her host has no slaves, then he or she offers fifteen shekels as compensation.

The Hittite Law

The Hittite law was developed after the Hammurabi law. It gave figures on the punishment given to the offender. For example, if one knocks out a free man’s tooth or breaks his leg, one was to pay twenty shekels. If the free man is murdered, then the heir decides the fate of the murderer.

The Enlightenment Age

On the other hand, during the enlightenment age, laws involved people thinking for themselves and relying on their intellectual capacities to make critical decisions. Enlightenment does not rely on a set of rules and superstitions on how to proceed and behave towards resolving a certain matter. Justice prevails as one is innocent until proven guilty. Due to the perception that, one is innocent till proven guilty, justice is achieved through reductionism and rationality to determine the conditions under which the crime was committed. Therefore, the Enlightenment age has seen to the end of antagonism and wars in the society.

Justice in the Enlightenment Age

In the field of justice, enlightenment takes the central position in a manner that it gives a chance to the offender to explain the cause of their actions before judgment is made, unlike the early forms of law where millions of innocent lives were lost because of blindly following laws without getting to the bottom of the crime committed. Reductionism and rationality are seen to be the crucial aspects of enlightenment age. In as much as enlightenment age differs from the early forms of law, they are interlinked in the sense that a crime is a crime and deserves to be punished.