The Development and Function of Equity in the English Common Law Tradition

Author(s):  
George Mousourakis
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Graham Virgo

This chapter introduces the nature of Equity. It provides a legal definition of Equity and offers a background of its history from the Middle Ages. It discusses the contemporary contribution of Equity to English law in a variety of different contexts, particularly in the commercial sphere. The chapter also examines fundamental feature of Equity, which is the division between the recognition and protection of property rights and personal rights. This chapter explains that Equity is not an independent system of law, but it has a distinct identity and function to modify the rigours of the Common Law and to create rights.


Author(s):  
Richard Glover

This chapter discusses the corroboration rule and the practice of suspect witness warnings. It covers the meaning and function of corroboration; the fact that there is no general requirement for corroboration at common law and that a conviction or judgment may be based on the evidence of a single witness; where corroboration is required as a matter of law; the abolition of the rule of practice requiring the judge to direct the jury to exercise caution before convicting in the absence of corroboration; the development of suspect witness warnings; cases in which a suspect witness warning is required; and suspect witness warnings and confirming evidence.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 335-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Miller ◽  
Kai Ambos

AbstractThe confirmation procedure is the linking interface between the investigation and trial of a case before the ICC; it is triggered by the arrival of the suspect at the court. The present paper distinguishes between the different phases of the ICC procedure and the different notions for the person concerned; it deals, in particular, with the issue of a proprio motu amendment of the charges by the Pre-Trial Chamber. The comparative survey reveals that while the principle "iura novit curia" is widely recognized in civil law countries, it is rarely accepted in the ambit of the common law. Notwithstanding, the ICC is committed to this principle, as clearly evidenced by Regulation 55 which allows the Trial Chamber to change the legal characterization of the facts during trial. As long as the rights of the person charged are observed, the same should apply in the confirmation procedure.


Author(s):  
Peter Manus

This article discusses the status of federal common law in the wake of the Supreme Court's May, 2013 denial of petitioners' writ of certiorari in Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxonmobil.  A close reading of Supreme Court and recent appellate decisions on federal common law as applied to transboundary pollution reveals three views on the availability and function of federal common law where a federal statute addresses a category of environmental harms: presumptive displacement of federal common law when a federal statute creates a regulatory approach, presumptive coexistence of federal statutory and common law where a federal statute does not provide relief for injuries alleged under common law, and case-by-case balancing of the interfering effect of federal common law against the injuries left unaddressed by federal statutory law.  The Court’s current approach resides somewhere between presumptive displacement and case-by-case balancing, and although the Court offers various rationales for this approach in its latest federal common law opinion, the most convincing of these is that cases involving transboundary pollution, particularly those alleging global warming-induced injury, are cumbersome for federal courts to handle as common law matters.  Allocation of judicial resources is within the Supreme Court's discretion to consider in rejecting a case, but it is a far more pragmatic than principled rationale, and thus less than satisfying as a court’s primary reason for denying relief.  A more principled approach, advocated by Justices Stevens and Blackmun in dissents to two key federal common law cases, is that the displacement analysis should begin with the premise that the judicial system aims, first and foremost, to compensate the injured, and that a federal common law claim should be displaced only where the legislative-regulatory regime covering the subject of a common law claim directly addresses the injury alleged under common law.


Author(s):  
Graham Virgo

This chapter introduces the nature of Equity. It provides a legal definition of Equity and offers a background of its history from the Middle Ages. It discusses the contemporary contribution of Equity to English law in a variety of different contexts, particularly in the commercial sphere. The chapter also examines fundamental feature of Equity, which is the division between the recognition and protection of property rights and personal rights. This chapter explains that Equity is not an independent system of law, but it has a distinct identity and function to modify the rigours of the Common Law and to create rights.


Author(s):  
John D. Morley ◽  
Robert H. Sitkoff

This chapter identifies the principal ways in which the common law trust has been used as an instrument of private ordering in American practice. It argues that in both law and function, contemporary American trust law has divided into two distinct branches. In the chapter’s taxonomy, one branch involves donative trusts and the other involves commercial trusts. The donative branch divides further to include three separate sub-branches for revocable and irrevocable private trusts plus charitable trusts. The different branches of contemporary American trust law have distinctive functional purposes rooted in freedom of disposition for donative trusts and freedom of contract for commercial trusts. The chapter explains the logic of this branching in both practical function and doctrinal form.


2019 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 15-43
Author(s):  
Richard Marcus

The text presents different attributes of the Supreme Court in common law and civil law systems. The author claims that the question of design and function of a supreme court, while important, is no more significant than the issue of its institutional status and evolution, i.e. something one could refer to as “legal culture”. Neither the “common law camp”, nor the “civil law camp” turns out to be monolithic in this regard. The distinctive history of the US Supreme Court is presented through the perspective of its statutory and procedural supremacy, as well as its power of constitutional adjudication. The author indicates that the supremacy of the US Supreme Court depends on many factors. Arguably, the most important attribute of the US Supreme Court’s supremacy is linked with the latitude offered to judges in common law system to “make law”, which stands in contrast to a limited judicial function in many civil law countries. The author argues that being a court in a common law system carries with it much broader authority. A supreme court in such a system is, as a result, much more supreme. The author concludes his comparative remarks by saying that it is not possible to proclaim the superiority of one specific system because there are too many variables that come into play with regard to respective nations.


Author(s):  
M. Boublik ◽  
W. Hellmann ◽  
F. Jenkins

The present knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of ribosomes is far too limited to enable a complete understanding of the various roles which ribosomes play in protein biosynthesis. The spatial arrangement of proteins and ribonuclec acids in ribosomes can be analysed in many ways. Determination of binding sites for individual proteins on ribonuclec acid and locations of the mutual positions of proteins on the ribosome using labeling with fluorescent dyes, cross-linking reagents, neutron-diffraction or antibodies against ribosomal proteins seem to be most successful approaches. Structure and function of ribosomes can be correlated be depleting the complete ribosomes of some proteins to the functionally inactive core and by subsequent partial reconstitution in order to regain active ribosomal particles.


Author(s):  
S. K. Pena ◽  
C. B. Taylor ◽  
J. Hill ◽  
J. Safarik

Introduction: Oxidized cholesterol derivatives have been demonstrated in various cell cultures to be very potent inhibitors of 3-hvdroxy-3- methylglutaryl Coenzyme A reductase which is a principle regulator of cholesterol biosynthesis in the cell. The cholesterol content in the cells exposed to oxidized cholesterol was found to be markedly decreased. In aortic smooth muscle cells, the potency of this effect was closely related to the cytotoxicity of each derivative. Furthermore, due to the similarity of their molecular structure to that of cholesterol, these oxidized cholesterol derivatives might insert themselves into the cell membrane, alter membrane structure and function and eventually cause cell death. Arterial injury has been shown to be the initial event of atherosclerosis.


Author(s):  
Caroline A. Miller ◽  
Laura L. Bruce

The first visual cortical axons arrive in the cat superior colliculus by the time of birth. Adultlike receptive fields develop slowly over several weeks following birth. The developing cortical axons go through a sequence of changes before acquiring their adultlike morphology and function. To determine how these axons interact with neurons in the colliculus, cortico-collicular axons were labeled with biocytin (an anterograde neuronal tracer) and studied with electron microscopy.Deeply anesthetized animals received 200-500 nl injections of biocytin (Sigma; 5% in phosphate buffer) in the lateral suprasylvian visual cortical area. After a 24 hr survival time, the animals were deeply anesthetized and perfused with 0.9% phosphate buffered saline followed by fixation with a solution of 1.25% glutaraldehyde and 1.0% paraformaldehyde in 0.1M phosphate buffer. The brain was sectioned transversely on a vibratome at 50 μm. The tissue was processed immediately to visualize the biocytin.


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