Legal regulation of lawyers’ activities according to Justinian’s Digests

Abstract

The article examines the normative regulation of the lawyers’ activities in accordance with the Digests as part of the Codifi cation carried out during the reign and under the leadership of Emperor Justinian the Great. This study is the continuing research on legal regulation activities of lawyers in accordance with the norms of the Code as the main legislative part of the Codifi cation, taking into account that that the legal regulation of public relations by norms of Digests was subsidiary to the regulation of their norms of the Code, but, nevertheless, the norms of Digests had an independent legal signifi cance. It outlines the main aspects, the regulation of which is contained in the Digests — the grounds and measures of disciplinary responsibility of lawyers, misdemeanors for which lawyers were subject to responsibility, grounds for appointing lawyers at the initiative of the court, issues of fee practice — and the norms regulating these aspects. All these issues are discussed in details in the context of the relationship between the advocacy and administrative justice system of the Roman Empire that had a signifi cant importance, since the bar, without having an independent corporate organization, was subordinate to the offi cials, governed administrative-territorial units Empires of various levels. At the same time, the importance of the rules under consideration is emphasized, which represent the opinions of lawyers that have received the force of law and provide an opportunity for conducting a comparative legal study of the problems of the advocacy.