Decrētum
A word meaning that which is determined in a particular case after examination or
consideration. It is thus applied to a resolution of the Senate.
A decretum of the Senate would seem to differ from a
senatusconsultum, in that it was limited to the special occasion and circumstances
instead of being of general application. But this distinction in the use of the two words, as
applied to an act of the Senate, is not consistently observed.
Cicero (
Ad Fam. xiii. 56) opposes
edictum to decretum,
between which there is in this passage apparently the same analogy as between a
consultum and a decretum of the Senate.
Decretum is the technical term for the decision and order which a magistrate
gives in a particular case after an inquiry into its circumstances (
causae
cognitio). A
iudex is said
condemnare not
decernere; the latter word being appropriate in judicial proceedings to
a magistrate who has
iurisdictio. A decretum, as one of the kinds of
imperial constitutions, was a judicial decision in a case before the emperor in his capacity
of supreme magistrate; cases were brought into the imperial court (
consistorium
principis) by
supplicationes or
provocationes
of suitors.
The interpretations of law laid down by the emperor in his decreta were, as a rule, binding
on all courts in subsequent cases.