Time and Law: foundation and limits of the retroactivity of the law

Abstract

In the long process of evolution of European Law and State, the problem of the succession of norms over time has received very different responses. At the present time it must be addressed within each of the legal systems as a matter of positive law. With these premises, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the problem of the retroactivity of the law — its foundation and its limits — has changed — throughout the process of evolution of European Law and State — in the broader framework of the derogatory phenomenon. Problem that does not arise with all its consequences until the French Revolution. There was a time when the law could not affect the past because it was a product of history, it is the time of the jurisdictional State that extends from the emergence of the first European states until the Revolution. In a second stage, that of the Rule of Law with its liberal constitution, the retroactivity of the law had a clear foundation: its sovereign character and defined ideological limits — legal security and acquired rights — although legally ineffective given legislative omnipotence. In a third stage, that of the constitutional State with its democratic constitution, the foundation and limits of retroactivity change. Retroactivity is now based on the democratic principle and finds its limit in fundamental rights.