In constitutional legislation the power of the people was unlimited. They could create new parliaments, as they did the _comitia tributa populi_;[1161] they could delegate full powers of legislation to parliaments already existing, as they did to the _concilium plebis_.[1162] They could devolve powers almost amounting to sovereign rights on an individual, as they devolved them ultimately on the Princeps. They might suspend the constitution and set up a provisional government, as they did when they gave constitutive powers to the decemvirs or to Sulla. They might also observe or create rules which limited their own power of utterance. A result of observance of a rule is a _formula_ which appears in Roman laws declaring their operation invalid in so far as they conflict with any fundamental obligation—the _fas_ or _jus_ which lies at the background of the state and which the people themselves dare not infringe. The scruple was expressed in the saving clause— SI QUID JUS NON ESSET ROGARIER, EJUS EA LEGE NIHILUM ROGATUM.[1163] Primarily this clause guarded a law against being a breach of a religious obligation;[1164] but, as interpreted by Cicero, it was a profession of respect even for certain ultimate secular rights—the rights for instance, to the possession of citizenship. The creation of limitations may be instanced by the provision of the Twelve Tables, which forbade enactments to the detriment of individuals (_privilegia_),[1165] and by a principle—perhaps rather a rule of procedure analogous to the formalities of legislation—which forbade laws on different subjects to be passed _en bloc_ (_per saturam_), a provision re-enacted by a _lex Caecilia Didia_ of 98 B.C.[1166] The creation of new magistracies was also within the power of the people, and, originally, the extension of an office beyond its proper term. In the year 327 B.C., at the commencement of the second Samnite war, the consul Q. Publilius Philo had his _imperium_ prolonged by a _plebiscitum_;[1167] although, as early as 308 B.C., in the prorogation of the command of the consul Q. Fabius Maximus, the Senate alone is mentioned as giving its sanction.[1168] The establishment of special judicial commissions to decide without appeal, in cases where the ordinary authorities were felt to be unable to cope with crime or conspiracy, was, in the strict theory of the constitution, entirely in the people’s hands. Commissions of this kind are found in 187,[1169] 172,[1170] and 141[1171] B.C. In all these cases there was co-operation between the Senate and people, and it is not until the revolutionary period that the people ventures on its own authority to establish a commission for criminal investigation.[1172]