On the accused’s right to a defence counsel in the Roman criminal procedure

This article is dedicated to the issue of the defendant's right to appoint a defense attorney in a Roman criminal trial. The purpose of this publication was to show how the ancient Romans understood the most important procedural right of the accused, i.e. the right to appoint a defense attorney, and especially to answer such detailed questions as when such a right was granted to him, i.e. at what stage of the criminal process he could use it. Furthermore, did we also deal with compulsory defense in the Roman criminal proces. Finally, the purpose of this study will also be to show what changes have occurred in the discussed issue in the historical development of the Roman criminal process (between the ordinary and extraordinary process), and what were the reasons for these changes. The studies presented in this paper were conducted using the historical-legal method, but the dogmatic-legal method was used in parallel. As shown in the proceedings before the quaestiones perpetuae, the praetor was obligated to appoint a defender for the accused if the latter could not find one himself and requested it, but only when the reus became a party to the process, i.e. when the so-called inscriptio inter reos took place. The defendant's right to appoint a defense attorney, as shown, became a universal procedural guarantee in the criminal cognition procedure, and during the period of the Dominate, it was transformed into universal compulsory defense. Furthermore, as shown, the reasons for these changes were dictated by the fact that in the criminal cognition procedure, the jurisdictional body deciding the case was finally equipped with the right of evidence initiative, and the fact that the defendant's right to appoint a defense attorney was transformed into a universal "legal" obligation during the post-classical period, as proven, should be treated as a manifestation of the phenomenon of unifying the rules and principles of the criminal cognition procedure during the post-classical period, but also as a manifestation of strengthening the procedural guarantees of the defendant.