Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
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Law
If any person make petition to the Council or to the Assembly in respect of any sentence of a Court of Justice or of the Council or of the Assembly, if the person who has been fined himself make petition before he has paid the fine, an information shall lie against him in the same manner as when a person sits on a jury being indebted to the treasury; and if another person make petition on behalf of the person fined, his whole property shall be confiscated; and if any Commissioner shall allow the question to be put for anyone, whether for the person fined or for another on his behalf, he shall be disfranchised.
24.51It is a long task, gentlemen of the jury, if we are to speak of all the laws to which the proposals introduced by the defendant are repugnant; but if any law deserves discussion it is surely that which the clerk has just read. The author of that law knew how kind-hearted and indulgent you Athenians are; he could see that in many instances you had already suffered serious detriment by your own act because of that easy disposition; 24.52and therefore, wishing to leave no excuse for public losses, he declared it wrongful that men who had been convicted of misconduct by process and judgement with the sanction of law should enjoy the benefit of your good-nature, falling back upon prayers and solicitation in their distress. Accordingly he strictly forbade either the culprit himself or anyone else to supplicate you or make speeches upon such complaints; they must do what justice demands in silence. 24.53Now if you were asked for whom you would more naturally do a service, for those who beg you or for those who bid you, I am sure you would reply, for those who beg; for the former service is the outcome of kindliness, the latter of cowardice. Well, the laws, all of them, command you to do your duty; suppliants beg you to do a favour. Then where supplication is forbidden, can it be permissible to introduce a law that contains a command? I think not. In cases in which you conceived it to be your duty even to refuse favours, it is shameful that you should allow the desires of certain people to be fulfilled against your will.—Read the statute that comes next in order. 24.54
Law
When there has been a prior judgement audit or adjudication about any matter in a court of law, whether in a public or a private suit, or where the State has been vendor, none of the magistrates may bring the matter into court or put any question to the vote, nor shall they permit any accusation forbidden by law.
24.55Why, it looks as though Timocrates were compiling evidence of his own transgressions; for at the very outset of his law he makes a proposal exactly contrary to these provisions. The legislator does not permit any question once decided by judgement of the court to be put a second time; the law of Timocrates reads that, if any penalty has been inflicted on a man in pursuance of a law or a decree, the Assembly must reconsider the matter for him, in order that the decision of the court may be overruled, and sureties put in by the person amerced. The statute forbids any magistrate even to put the question contrary to these provisions; Timocrates proposes that, if sureties are nominated, the Commissioners shall be obliged to submit their names, and adds the phrase, “whenever any debtor wishes.”— 24.56Read another statute.
Law
Judgements and awards given under the law while the government was democratic shall be valid.
No, says Timocrates; they shall not be valid, at least when the penalty of imprisonment has been imposed.—Proceed. But acts done and judgements delivered during the time of the Thirty Tyrants, whether in private or public suits, shall be invalid.Law
Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 24.40 | Dem. 24.50 (Greek) | >>Dem. 24.60 |