The Earliest Systems of Justice and Law
In the prehistoric and ancient world, people usually lived together in villages or cities for protection against wild animals, invaders or other dangers.  When people live close together, disagreements are bound to happen. In fact, it was often in response to a domestic dispute that kings or city councils made laws.

Most kings and councils quickly realized that any law the ordinary people had to obey needed to be simple, and had to make sense to them.  Keep in mind that police forces, like those in the modern world, did not exist.  So, for a law to be effective, the people needed to have very good reasons to obey.  As a result, most ancient codes of law seemed to be either a punishment for, or prohibition of, some specific action or behavior.  In ancient  Egypt and Mesopotamia, for example, the punishment for most crimes was the same: death!

Such harsh punishments make more sense when it is understood that ancient peoples thought law was something that had been given to them by God.  So, in their view, if a person broke a law, they were also disobeying God.  And if a person disobeyed God, then their whole city might get punished, too.  In that light, punishing a criminal by death can be seen as an attempt to make sure God does not become offended or angry.

Egypt
In the lands along the Nile, the all-powerful monarch was called pharaoh. The people thought pharaoh was the physical incarnation of the god Horus here on earth. As both a man and a god, pharaoh blended and used both politics and religion to govern his lands. 

As an absolute monarch, pharaoh claimed the divine right to rule Egypt.  In other words, pharaoh ruled because god had decreed it.  Under pharaoh, law and justice were at his whim. His decisions were final, with no way to appeal.

Mesopotamia
In Sumer and Babylon, the king was often both the monarch and the high priest. The position of these so-called priest-kings was relatively unstable. If the god(s) didn't provide for welfare of the citizens, the people often held the king responsible, and deposed him.

In the first half of the 18th century BCE., King Hammurabi had a code of law written down for all to see.  It was carved on a stone eight feet tall (seen left).  It was one of the first times a ruler was known to have publicly proclaimed a set of laws for everyone to follow.

Hammurabi's Code dealt with both criminal (crimes and punishments) and civil (e.g. grievances between people over property, money, relationships) law. 

Despite the progress made by Hammurabi's Code, the heavy use of the death penalty as punishment makes it seem barbaric to the modern observer.  The chart below may reveal some of the limitations of the Code.