Criminal law or penal law is the body of law that relates to crime and punishment. Informed by the philosophical ideals of the enlightenment, particularly the writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the revolutionaries who toppled the French monarchy in the 1790s established a new republic in their wake. Though the République française was short-lived — Napoleon’s rule transformed France into an aristocracy by the turn of the next century — its founding on the principles of Rousseau’s Social Contract would be particularly influential to the myriad nations soon to emerge from crumbling European monarchies and splintering colonial empires. This is not to say that I believe democracy is dead within the USA, I believe that it is alive and thriving,for example take President Obama’s health reforms whether they are the right or wrong course of action does not matter, the fact is that they are an act of democracy. The USA … Read the rest