0 Draconian laws, government actions, etc. are extremely severe, or go further than what is right or necessary:
He criticized the draconian measures taken by the police in controlling the demonstrators.
The question as to why governments do not eradicate all misdemeanors by imposing draconian penalties is yet to be resolved.
Regulation is pictured as a pyramid of activities, beginning with persuasion at the bottom, and ending with a variety of draconian penalties at the top.
It would be very strange to see the rules for wills or contracts as draconian means of making testation-without-two-witnesses and promiseswithout-reciprocity impossible.
Finally, there is the assessment of lawmakers thinking about adopting draconian legislation now-like our cur rent drug laws-to avert more draconian laws in the future.
The context here is one in which all of society adopted a certain draconian punishment regime.
Complicating this individual dilemma with arcane opinion, let alone draconian policy, rarely if ever helps.
There we asked whether it was moral for a state to inflict some draconian punishment now if it thus averted more draconian punishment later on.
The authorities soon backed away from these draconian measures, yet throughout the war salons operated under the most severe restrictions.
