Principle of Legality
An overarching concept in American criminal law is that people may not be punished for committing merely immoral or unethical acts. They can only be punished if that act has been announced beforehand as a crime.
Read more about this topic: United States Criminal Law
Famous quotes containing the words principle of and/or principle:
“The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day’s time they will have turned it into a Hell.”
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
“Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.”
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965)