Statistical Evidence and the Problem of Specification

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Normative Issues ◽  
Philosophical Debates

Abstract Philosophical debates over statistical evidence have long been framed and dominated by L. Jonathan Cohen's Paradox of the Gatecrasher and a related hypothetical example commonly called Prison Yard. These examples, however, raise an issue not discussed in the large and growing literature on statistical evidence – the question of what statistical evidence is supposed to be evidence of. In actual practice, the legal system does not start with a defendant and then attempt to determine if that defendant has committed some unspecified or under-specified act, as these examples appear to suppose. Rather, both criminal and civil litigation start with a sufficiently specified act and then attempt to determine if the defendant has committed it. And when we start with a more fully specified act, the statistics look very different, and these prominent examples no longer present the paradox they are claimed to support. Examining the issue of specification, however, does more than simply undercut the prominent examples in a long and extensive literature. The examination also raises normative issues challenging the legal system's traditional reluctance to base liability on the conjunction of probabilities.

Does Procedural Mean Trans-substantive? A Historical and Normative Analysis of English Civil Procedure Rules

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-268
Author(s):  
Carla Crifo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Civil Procedure ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
American System ◽  
Normative Analysis

One of the outcomes of the Judicature Acts’ reforms of English civil litigation in the nineteenth century was the separation of ‘substance’ from ‘procedure’, by introducing rules of court that were expected to apply trans-substantively, in contrast to the previous forms of action. This was not an express central aim of the reformers, who may also have been influenced by the then concurrent creation of the American system of federal courts and their civil procedure. The chapter identifies the historical, philosophical, and ideological buttresses of the trans-substantive nature of procedural rules in the English legal system, and how trans-substantivity itself differs from the cognate values of generality and uniformity. It then explores whether any one of these concepts is still used, or useful, in English civil procedure.

When Good Little Debts Went Bad: Civil Litigation on the Virginia Frontier, 1745–1755

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinni Sen ◽  
Turk McCleskey ◽  
Atin Basuchoudhary
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Logit Model ◽  
Multinomial Logit Model ◽  
Multinomial Logit ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Small Claims

The use of a multinomial logit model to analyze a hitherto unavailable dataset of 1,376 small-claims lawsuits in colonial Augusta County, Virginia, for information about debts, litigants, and procedures f inds no evidence of prejudice in the legal system. The magistrates’ consistently fair enforcement of legitimate contracts may have induced both plaintiffs and defendants to settle their disputes in court rather than in private. The evidence corroborates the view that by the mid-eighteenth century, Virginia’s frontier judicial system was sufficiently impartial to encourage creditors to draw up efficient contracts even for small debts.

scholarly journals Transboundary Civil Litigation for Victims of Southeast Asian Haze Pollution: Access to Justice and the Non-Discrimination Principle

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-142
Author(s):  
Prischa Listiningrum
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
State Level ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Haze Pollution

AbstractThis article examines access to justice for victims of the Southeast Asian haze pollution within the legal system of Indonesia as the source-of-origin state. It argues that bringing civil claims against the polluting companies before Indonesian courts offers a more effective avenue towards justice than relying on resolution at the level of state to state. The article first discusses barriers to resolving the problem through the state-to-state level. It then considers whether, under international law, the source-of-origin state is obliged to provide remedies for victims of transboundary environmental damage. The article then reviews the efficacy of pursuing remedies for transboundary civil claims against polluters through the legal system of the source-of-origin state. Finally, the article considers the limitations of the laws of the affected states, which, as a consequence, mean that transboundary civil litigation in the source-of-origin state may be the most effective avenue for redress.

Status of Treaties in Domestic Legal Systems: A Policy Analysis

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
International System ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
International Legal System ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Domestic Law

The degree to which an international treaty is “directly applied” or “self-executing” in a national (municipal) legal system, i.e., to what extent the treaty norms are treated directly as norms of domestic law (“statutelike law”) without a further “act of transformation,” has been debated in an extensive literature for more than a century. This subject is now receiving increased recognition as part of a broader trend acknowledging that understanding an international legal system necessitates understanding the relationship of national legal and political systems to that international system. In connection with treaties, the basic concepts of “monism” and “dualism” have long been used to explain some of the relationships of treaty law to domestic law.

scholarly journals Civil proceedings with foreign participants in china - from the perspective of digital technology

2021 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 02004
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Rusakova ◽  
Wang Wei
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
Rule System

This article takes the legal rules of digital civil proceedings with foreign participants in China as the research object, and studies the structure and content of the civil digital litigation rule system from the present situation of the foreign-related civil digital litigation rules. The purpose of this article is to study how China constructs the foreign-related civil litigation legal system under the Internet thinking, and how to establish a digital judicial system centred on the litigants. This article discusses from two aspects: the use of digital technology to promote the settlement of foreign-related civil litigation cases, and the characteristics of new foreign-related civil litigation cases produced by digital technology.

The English Legal System

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisdair Gillespie ◽  
Siobhan Weare
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Alternative Dispute Resolution ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
System P ◽  
Civil Justice System

The English Legal System presents the main areas of the legal system and encourages a critique of the wider aspects of how law is made and reformed. The book is structured in five parts. Part I looks at the sources of law including domestic and international sources. Part II looks at the courts and the practitioners. It considers the structure of the courts and tribunals, judges and judicial independence, and the legal professions. Part III examines the criminal justice system. It begins by looking at police powers and the decision to charge and prosecute a suspect. It describes issues related to lay justice, trials, and criminal appeals, including access to justice and legal aid. The next part is about the civil justice system. It looks at civil litigation, remedies, appeals and alternative dispute resolution, as well as the funding of civil litigation. The final part looks to the future.

scholarly journals Prvenstvo prava pred idejama dobra

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 1011-1029
Author(s):  
Petar Popović
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Concept Of Law ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Concept Of Law

In the paper, the author analyzes the concept of law in John Rawls’s political conception of justice. After analyzing Rawls’s relevant texts that contain certain elements of the argument for the concept of law as an institution, of the legal system, of legal norms and of the rights, as well as the secondary literature on these texts, the metajuridical foundation of the concept of law is researched. The author then claims that Rawls’s argument for the priority of right over ideas of good is the central thesis for an adequate understanding of his legal constructivism. It is then affirmed that we can legitimately refer to his thought on the subject under the rubric of the priority of the law over the ideas of the good. Rawls’s conception of the natural rights is researched next. The paper concludes with the evaluation of the results of the whole line of analysis, especially with regard to the place of Rawls’s concept of law within the contemporary juridical-philosophical debates.

The English Legal System

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisdair Gillespie ◽  
Siobhan Weare
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Alternative Dispute Resolution ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Legal Aid ◽  
System P ◽  
Civil Justice System

The English Legal System presents the main areas of the legal system and encourages a critique of the wider aspects of how law is made and reformed. The book is structured in five parts. Part I looks at the sources of law including domestic and international sources. Part II looks at the courts and the practitioners. It considers the structure of the courts and tribunals, judges and judicial independence, the legal professions, and legal aid. Part III examines the criminal justice system. It describes issues related to lay justice, trials, and criminal appeals. The next part is about the civil justice system. It looks at civil litigation, remedies, appeals and alternative dispute resolution, as well as the funding of civil litigation. The final part looks to the future.

scholarly journals Some Important Features of Lithuania Civil Procedure

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Keyword(s):  
Group Action ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Civil Procedure ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Civil Justice ◽  
Central European ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
Preparatory Stage

As in all Eastern and Central European countries, legal system in Lithuania, including civil justice, has undergone many reforms since 1990. In 2003 new Lithuanian Code of Civil Procedure came into force and finally traditions of Western Europe (mainly German and Austrian ones) were systematically introduced into civil litigation in Lithuania. The aim of this article is to present some distinct aspects of Lithuanian civil procedure. It has been chosen to present electronification of civil proceedings because if it’s broadly known success throughout Europe. Preparatory stage is described because this stage of civil proceedings was reformed drastically in 2003. Group action is discussed as one of examples of unsuccessful reforms of Lithuanian civil justice.

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