The Constitutional Council has invoked Article 8 of the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights and Citizen Rights, which stipulates that the law shall establish only those penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary. Accordingly, the parliament has given criminal law a new dimension by denying legislators the right to enact more stringent temporary provisions when a more lenient criminal statute exists. The parliament also will be meeting to discuss whether judges should also be denied the right to enact these harsher temporary penalties. The practical and philosophical bases of the provisions of the 1981 law concerning the establishment of penalties are discussed, and justifications for the proposed modifications are examined. Footnotes are supplied.