Some historical and legal aspects of bringing to legal responsibility for giving and executing criminal orders and orders
Authors: Lankevich A. 
Published: June 2023

The article provides a general description of the evolutionary stage of the development of legal responsibility for issuing and executing criminal orders and orders arising from the legal and historical sources of the Ancient World, Ancient Times and the Bible as the basis for the development of modern constitutional law. The biblical understanding of legal responsibility for issuing and executing criminal orders and orders, its content, nature and types is analyzed separately; the cause-and-effect relationship between the actions of government representatives and ordinary people and the onset of responsibility for violating God’s commandments is revealed.

From the analysis of historical and legal sources, it can be seen that the legal responsibility for issuing and executing criminal orders and orders went through certain stages of formation, which are directly related to the processes of emergence and development depending on the historical type of the state and its legal instruments.

It is noted that the first states that at the legislative level established legal responsibility, that is, punishment, including for giving and executing criminal orders and orders, were the states of the Ancient East, in particular, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Babylon, and Ancient India, where at the legislative level legal responsibility was introduced not only for ordinary people, but also for representatives of the authorities for criminal actions against the state that encroached on the established state order. In most cases, the punishment for such acts was the death penalty. But from the analysis of separate historical legal sources, it also follows that at the legislative level, certain subjects, representatives of the authorities, who had certain immunity and could not bear legal responsibility for their actions, including those expressed in giving criminal orders or orders, were defined at the legislative level. Since it was possible to apply a separate type of responsibility of a social and not a legal nature in relation to such persons, although it was of a coercive nature.

It is pointed out that in the historical sources of the Ancient World, the understanding of legal responsibility for issuing and executing criminal orders and orders was carried out through the prism of moral and ethical norms that were in force at that time in society. Such criteria served not only as a pillar of law and justice, but were also fundamental for distinguishing orders and orders that had a criminal nature and bringing their authors to legal responsibility. At the same time, it was the development of the idea of legality in the works of thinkers of the ancient era that became the basis on which legal responsibility was based. Because the principle of legality was interpreted by thinkers as the principle of equality before the law and the inevitability of responsibility, including representatives of the authorities, who, having powerful powers, could sometimes use them in violation of the law, by issuing criminal orders and orders.

It is argued that the idea of legal responsibility for issuing and executing criminal orders and orders dates back to biblical times, where it is inextricably linked to the doctrine of the origin and separation of powers. Therefore, in view of the significant influence of Christianity on the formation of the Western legal tradition, in particular the texts of the Bible, which in fact became the civilizational foundation on which the legal norms designed to regulate social relations between people and government institutions were based and will continue to be based, including the scope revealed which is assigned to man for his dominion and the limits where such dominion ends. And in the event that not only representatives of the authorities, but also anyone violates the commandments established by the Creator, including not only by issuing, but also by executing orders or orders, then such actions are subject to condemnation, and the person himself is subject to punishment.