The Roman roots of the presumption of innocence and the right to defense

Abstract

The subject of the study is the issue of whether and how Roman law influenced the position of the accused in the criminal trial, in particular in the context of the in dubio pro reo principle and the related presumption of innocence. The genesis of these principles can be found, according to legal and literary sources, in the Roman criminal trial. The study shows that the trial position of the accused is largely rooted in Roman law, while the shape of the presumption of innocence, in dubio pro reo and the right of defense in the contemporary criminal process coincides to a large extent with its ancient counterpart.