Demosthenes, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The graphe paranomon — an indictment against an unconstitutional decree — is the instrument by which Athens kept its laws from being eaten alive by its own Assembly. Here is how it works. When a man proposes a decree or a law that conflicts with existing legislation, any citizen may indict him for it.1 The indictment goes before a jury; the proposer must defend his measure; and if he loses, the decree is struck down and he faces a penalty.
If the prosecutor fails to win a fifth of the votes, he pays a thousand drachms and loses the right to bring the same kind of charge again.2 That double edge keeps the weapon from being wielded frivolously, though it does not always succeed. What gives the procedure its teeth is the discipline it imposes on the man who wants a new law. He must write it out and post it publicly before the statues of the Heroes, so that every citizen may read it; he must propose it for all equally; and he must repeal whatever existing laws stand in its way.3
Violate any one of those conditions and the indictment lies against you. Timocrates violated all of them at once, which is why I brought a separate charge for each offence rather than collapsing them into one. The deeper purpose is this: the demos in its sovereign capacity can be moved by a clever speaker on a single afternoon to pass something that unravels the work of a generation.
The graphe paranomon interposes a second moment of judgment, cooler and more deliberate, between the passion of the Assembly and the permanence of the law. Aeschines tried to use it against Ctesiphon's decree crowning me — and could not win a fifth of the votes.4 The procedure worked exactly as it should: it forced the question into a court, gave both sides a full hearing, and let the city decide on the merits.
a prosecutor frequently had his choice between two or more of them, each of which offered its own particular advantages. It was the policy of the law to give every facility for attaining the ends of justice, and therefore it allowed various remedies against the wrongdoer.Against Leptines, Midias, Androtion and Aristocrates
any man who dropped a prosecution which he had commenced, or who upon the trial failed to get one-fifth of the votes, should pay a penalty of a thousand drachms, and be disabled to bring any similar charge in future.Against Leptines, Midias, Androtion and Aristocrates
he is directed first to write out his law, and put it up before the statues of the Heroes, that every man may have an opportunity of seeing it, and he is required also to propose the same law for all, and further, to repeal those laws which are inconsistent with it.Against Timocrates, Aristogiton and Aphobus
Diondas, who indicted the proposer, did not obtain the necessary fraction of the votes.The Public Orations, Vol 2