El origen no romano del brocardo societas delinquere non potest

Abstract

The phrase societas delinquere non potest has been for more than a century attributed to Roman Law. In European law, constructing Roman jurisprudence as a precedesor was particularly effective in legitimizing the denial of criminal liability to corporations. In Spain, for instance, legal persons were only considered subject to criminal law from 2010 onwards, through the LO 5/2010 (23rd of July). In this article, I show evidence to argue that the phrase was actually coined by German legal expert Franz von Liszt as late as 1881, in the first edition of his Das Deutsche Reichsstraftrecht. Because Listz wrote it in Latin, later authors soon started to assume its Roman origins and turned it into an axiom in the early years of the 20th century, obscuring until now the real origins and history of the phrase.