Joaquin Escriche

Joaquin Escriche Martin was a Spanish lawyer, legal scholar, translator and politician who lived from 10 September 1784 to 16 November 1847, born in Caminreal in the province of Teruel. He studied theology and law at Zaragoza, served as secretary of the political government of the Kingdom of Aragon during the Liberal Triennium, and went into exile in Paris in 1823 after the restoration of Ferdinand VII, returning only after the king's death. He later sat on Spain's General Commission of Codes, established in 1843, contributing to an 1846 draft organic law for the courts and to the 1848 Penal Code, and he translated legal and political works by Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Jefferson into Spanish. His lasting achievement was the Diccionario razonado de legislacion y jurisprudencia, a reasoned dictionary of Spanish legislation and jurisprudence that went through multiple editions during his lifetime and was still being revised and reissued as late as 1874 to 1877.