La certezza del diritto nell’età del processo formulare. Conoscibilità dello ius e prevedibilità degli esiti giudiziali tra ‘modello repubblicano’ e ‘modello imperiale’: il contributo di Labeone

These considerations are focused on the topic of ‘legal certainty’ in the age of the formulary trial. The ‘generic’ players of the two aspects of ‘legal certainty’ examined (‘certainty-knowability’ of the law and ‘security-predictability’ of judicial decisions) appear to have been – for ‘knowability’ – the jurists, in their advisory activity, and – for ‘predictability’ – the praetor, in the composition of the formula for a concrete controversy. The sources, however, show signs of a ‘stratification’ of the dialectic between a republican ‘model’ and an imperial ‘model’ of ‘certainty of law’. The ‘certainty-knowability’ oscillates between the typically republican knowledge mediation of the jurist and the immediate knowability of the imperial laws. The ‘securitypredictability’ of judicial decisions oscillates between the composition of the formulas of the magistrate and the ‘ius publice respondendi ex auctoritate principis’ introduced by Augustus. The ‘specific’ player of the resistance, at the beginning of the new imperial age, of the ‘certainty-knowability’ and ‘security-predictability’ proper of the ‘republican model’ appears to have been a jurist of republican spirit, named Labeo.