The principle of the constitution which guaranteed a fair trial to the citizen was upheld; for we have the statement of Cicero that the Twelve Tables granted the _provocatio_ “from every kind of court and punishment”[409] In two other particulars they limited the jurisdiction of the people. It was maintained that no law or criminal sentence (for this took the form of a _lex_) should be directed against a private individual (_privilegia ne inroganto_), and it was laid down that no capital sentence could be passed except “by the greatest of the _comitia_” (_nisi per maximum comitiatum_),[410] i.e. by the assembly of the centuries. Later interpretation held that this clause struck a blow at the capital jurisdiction of the _concilium plebis_; it is, however, doubtful how far this extraordinary jurisdiction, resting on a religious sanction, could be affected by a law which, as we shall see, never treated the Plebs as a political corporation at all. Another important constitutional provision of this code was one which granted the right of free association. The Twelve Tables, while severely prohibiting secret gatherings (_coetus nocturni_)[411] which had presumably treasonable designs, permitted the free formation of guilds (_collegia_ or _sodalicia_). Such colleges were to require no special charter; the rules which they made for their own guidance should be valid, provided they were no infringement of the public law.[412] Lastly, the code guaranteed the sovereignty of the popular assembly by declaring that its last enactment should be final, without setting limits to the sphere of its legislative activity.[413] This was a token of the Roman conviction that there should be no finality in law. The Twelve Tables themselves were not guarded against repeal. It was a forecast of further development following the course of the old, of a constitution whose stages were marked by elasticity and growth, not by rigidity and revolution.
The new law does not appear to have made mention of the Plebs and its tribunes, for they were hardly a part of the constitution; and yet, in the crisis that followed the fall of the decemvirate, the question that gathered round these ignored powers was great enough to obscure every other issue.