The Criminal Law of Malta was codified in 1854 under British rule. Prior to that, Maltese criminal law was subject to regulation by the Municipal Code of 1784, promulgated by the government of the Knights of St John. In both instances, the Maltese themselves were active in the creation of the legal text, and in both cases, they explicitly referred to the Maltese nation and to law and its notional relationship with the nation and that relationship’s ramifications. The question therefore arises whether codification nationalised criminal law in Malta, where a Frenchified élite that spoke Italian belonged to the ius commune tradition, was alive to the Enlightenment, and sought to resist a complete take-over under the occupation of a ruler whose common-law system mistrusted codification.

马耳他刑法于 1854 年在英国统治下编纂。在此之前，马耳他的刑法受圣约翰骑士团政府颁布的 1784 年市政法典的监管。在这两种情况下，马耳他人自己都积极参与了法律文本的制定，并且在这两种情况下，他们都明确提到了马耳他民族和法律及其与民族的概念关系以及这种关系的后果。因此出现的问题是，在马耳他，编纂是否将刑法国有化，在那里，一个讲意大利语的法国化精英属于ius 公社传统，在启蒙运动中还活着，并试图抵制在统治者的占领下完全接管，该统治者的共同点是：法律体系不信任编纂。