An enlightened shadow? Elements of the intellectual climate at the time of the codification of the Criminal Law of Malta

Abstract

The Criminal Law of Malta was codified in 1854 under British rule. Prior to that, Maltese criminal law was subject to regulation by the Municipal Code of 1784, promulgated by the government of the Knights of St John. In both instances, the Maltese themselves were active in the creation of the legal text, and in both cases, they explicitly referred to the Maltese nation and to law and its notional relationship with the nation and that relationship’s ramifications. The question therefore arises whether codification nationalised criminal law in Malta, where a Frenchified élite that spoke Italian belonged to the ius commune tradition, was alive to the Enlightenment, and sought to resist a complete take-over under the occupation of a ruler whose common-law system mistrusted codification.