Право азила у Византијскосрпској правној компилацији закону цара Константина Јустинијана
The right of asylum in the compilation of Byzantine-Serbian law of emperor Constantine Justinian

Summary/Abstract: The right of asylum, i.e. of protective refuge, existed for centuries in the European mediaeval law, and it originated as far back as the classical times. In all the Christian states the Church offered refuge to fugitives in order to prevent arbitrary dispensation of punishment and to preserve the public order. The right of asylum was also incorporated in the Serbian mediaeval codices of law and in their later redactions. The Ravanica manuscript of Emperor Stefan Dušan's legislation, dating from the last quarter of the seventeenth century, includes several legal texts – a law of Emperor Constantine Justinian, Emperor Dušan's Code, and the Imperial Code of Emperors Leo and Constantine. The right of asylum is defined in Article 42 of Emperor Constantine Justinian and Articles 19 and 22 of the Imperial Code of Leo and Constantine. Articles 112-113 of Emperor Dušan's Code extend the right of asylum to the imperial and patriarchal courts. The basic source of the right to asylum is Byzantine law. Serbia and the other Balkan countries belonging to the Byzantine cultural sphere (Bulgaria, Romania) adopted this right, but they also introduced certain modifications, especially in the manner of punishing the culprits. Some changes were introduced also in the later codices of law, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the right of asylum was preserved.

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