Editing Nulla poena sine lege (section)

==In common law==
One complexity is the lawmaking power of judges under [[common law]]. Even in [[civil law (legal system)|civil law]] systems that do not admit judge-made law, it is not always clear when the function of interpretation of the criminal law ends and judicial lawmaking begins.

In [[English criminal law]] there are offences of [[common law]] origin. For example, [[murder]] is still a [[common law offence]] and lacks a statutory definition. The [[Homicide Act 1957]] did not include a statutory definition of murder (or any other homicidal offence). Therefore, the definition of murder was the subject of no fewer than six appeals to the House of Lords within the following 40 years (''Director of Public Prosecutions v. Smith'' [1961] A.C. 290; ''Hyam v. Director of Public Prosecutions'' [1975] A.C. 55; ''Regina v. Cunningham'' [1982] A.C. 566; ''Regina v. Moloney'' [1985] A.C. 905; ''Regina v. Hancock'' [1986] A.C. 455; ''Regina v. Woollin'' [1998] 4 A11 E.R. 103 (H.L.)).