UNEXCUSED REASONABLE MISTAKES: CAN THE CASE FOR NOT EXCUSING MISTAKES OF LAW BE SUPPORTED BY THE CASE FOR NOT EXCUSING MISTAKES OF MORALITY?

Legal Theory ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-99
Author(s):  
Alexander A. Guerrero
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
The Law

ABSTRACTIn most common-law and civil-law jurisdictions, mistakes of law do not excuse. That is, the fact that one was ignorant of the content or requirements of some law does not excuse violations of that law. Many have argued that this doctrine is mistaken. In particular, many have argued that if an individual's ignorance or false belief is blameless, if she held the false belief reasonably, then she ought to be able to use that ignorance as an excuse for violating the law. It is much harder to find defenders of the doctrine, despite its prevalence. Pragmatic considerations are occasionally offered on its behalf, but these are generally not impressive. In this paper, I consider a more direct kind of justification for the doctrine, one that attempts to identify something more immediately normatively objectionable about being ignorant of the law. In particular, I consider an argument that suggests that legal ignorance is more like moral ignorance than like nonmoral ignorance and maintains that even nonculpable moral ignorance does not excuse.

scholarly journals CODIFICATION, CONSOLIDATION, RESTATEMENT? HOW BEST TO SYSTEMISE THE MODERN LAW OF TORT

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-305
Author(s):  
Paula Giliker
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
Codal Provisions ◽  
Code Civil

AbstractThe law of tort (or extra or non-contractual liability) has been criticised for being imprecise and lacking coherence. Legal systems have sought to systemise its rules in a number of ways. While civil law systems generally place tort law in a civil code, common law systems have favoured case-law development supported by limited statutory intervention consolidating existing legal rules. In both systems, case law plays a significant role in maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the law. This article will examine, comparatively, different means of systemising the law of tort, contrasting civil law codification (taking the example of recent French proposals to update the tort provisions of the Code civil) with common law statutory consolidation and case-law intervention (using examples taken from English and Australian law). In examining the degree to which these formal means of systemisation are capable of improving the accessibility, intelligibility, clarity and predictability of the law of tort, it will also address the role played by informal sources, be they ambitious restatements of law or other means. It will be argued that given the nature of tort law, at best, any form of systemisation (be it formal or informal) can only seek to minimise any lack of precision and coherence. However, as this comparative study shows, further steps are needed, both in updating outdated codal provisions and rethinking the type of legal scholarship that might best assist the courts.

Towards a Transsystemic Study of the Ghana Legal System

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Poku Adusei
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Cultural Dialogue

This article provides comprehensive insights into the study of the Ghana legal system as an academic discipline in the law faculties in Ghana. It urges the view that the study of the Ghana legal system, as an academic discipline, should be transsystemic. Transsystemic pedagogy consists in the introduction of ideas, structures and principles which may be drawn from different legal traditions such as civil law, common law, religion-based law, African law and socialist law traditions to influence the study of law. Transsystemia involves teaching law ‘across,’ ‘through,’ and ‘beyond’ disciplinary fixations associated with a particular legal system. It is a mode of scholarship that defies biased allegiance to one legal tradition in order to foster cross-cultural dialogue among legal traditions. It involves a study of law that re-directs focus from one concerned with ‘pure’ legal system to a discourse that is grounded on multiple legal traditions.

The Neuroscientific Non-Challenge to Meaning, Morals, and Purpose

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Morse
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Concepts

Stephen J. Morse argues that neuroscience raises no new challenges for the existence, source, and content of meaning, morals, and purpose in human life, nor for the robust conceptions of agency and autonomy underpinning law and responsibility. Proponents of revolutionizing the law and legal system make two arguments. The first appeals to determinism and the person as a “victim of neuronal circumstances” (VNC) or “just a pack of neurons” (PON). The second defend “hard incompatibilism. ” Morse reviews the law’s psychology, concept of personhood, and criteria for criminal responsibility, arguing that neither determinism nor VNC/PON are new to neuroscience and neither justifies revolutionary abandonment of moral and legal concepts and practices evolved over centuries in both common law and civil law countries. He argues that, although the metaphysical premises for responsibility or jettisoning it cannot be decisively resolved, the hard incompatibilist vision is not normatively desirable even if achievable.

Unjustified Enrichment in Comparative Perspective

2006 ◽  
pp. 968-1002
Author(s):  
Daniel Visser
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Level Of Understanding ◽  
Unjustified Enrichment

Unjustified enrichment confronted both civil and common lawyers with thinking which was often completely outside the paradigm to which they had become accustomed. The recognition of unjustified enrichment as a cause of action in its own right in English law created a new arena of uncertainty between the systems. This article argues that comparative lawyers can make an important contribution to the future of the fractured and fractious world of unjustified enrichment. It may help to uncover the enormous wealth of learning of which both the common law and the civil law are the repositories, and so bring the same level of understanding to the law of unjustified enrichment which has, over the years, been achieved between the systems in regard to contract and tort.

In Our Image: Colonial Discourse and the Anglicization of the Law of Mandatory Palestine

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Likhovski
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
The Law ◽  
Shoulder Blade

My story is full of holes. The first hole, or rather, ditch, was dug in 1930 by the municipality of Haifa. An Arab, Dr. Caesar Khoury, fell into the ditch and fractured his shoulder-blade.Could Dr. Khoury recover? The law of torts of mandatory Palestine was found in the Mejelle — an Ottoman code of Moslem civil law. Did the Mejelle provide a remedy in the case of personal injury? “Unfortunately,” said Judge Francis Baker, who delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court of Palestine, “the Mejelle dealt with liability for damages caused by animals to property, but it was ‘silent’ with regards to injuries caused to persons”. Therefore, Dr. Khoury could not recover.The second hole in my story belongs to a Jew, Feivel Danovitz. In 1939, Danovitz was run down by a truck in Tel Aviv. He sued the driver and the owner of the truck. The lower courts of Tel Aviv decided that if the Mejelle did not deal with liability for personal injury, that meant that there was a hole in the tort law of Palestine. Such a hole could be filled by recourse to the English common law in accordance with the provisions of Article 46 of the Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922. Since the English common law recognized liability for personal injury, Danovitz could recover.

6. Domicile, nationality, and habitual residence

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hill
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Habitual Residence ◽  
Choice Of Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Permanent Home ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Personal Law

The object of jurisdictional rules is to determine an appropriate forum and choice of law rules are designed to lead to the application of the most appropriate law, the law that generally the parties might reasonably expect to apply. The test for recognition of foreign judgments is not dissimilar. A judgment granted by an appropriate forum should normally be recognised. The problem is one of ascertaining the connecting factor (or factors) which would best satisfy the criterion of appropriateness. With regards to personal connecting factors, there is little international agreement as to the appropriate test of ‘belonging’. In England and most common law countries, the traditional personal connecting factor is domicile, which loosely translates as a person's permanent home. One of the problems here is that domicile is a connecting factor which is interpreted differently in various parts of the world. In contrast, most of continental Europe and other civil law countries have traditionally used nationality as the basic connecting factor, especially for choice of law purposes; the personal law is the law of the country of which the person is a citizen. In some countries, including England, another connecting factor, habitual residence, has emerged. This is increasingly being used for the purposes of jurisdiction rules and in the law relating to recognition of foreign judgments. This chapter examines each of these personal connecting factors. Primary emphasis is laid on domicile and habitual residence as the two main connecting factors employed by English law.

Formation of Contract and Stipulations for Third Parties in Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary F Bell
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

Indonesia is one of the most legally diverse and complex countries in the world. It practises legal pluralism with three types of contract law in force: adat (customary) contract laws, Islamic contract laws (mostly concerning banking), and the European civil law of contract, transplanted from the Netherlands in 1847, found mainly in the Civil Code (Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Perdata). This chapter focuses on European civil law as it is the law used for the majority of commercial transactions. The civil law of contract is not well developed and there is a paucity of indigenous doctrine and jurisprudence, since most significant commercial disputes are settled by arbitration. The contours of the law are consistent with the French/Dutch legal tradition. In the formation of contracts, the subjective intention of the parties plays a greater role than in the common law. As with most jurisdictions with a Napoleonic tradition, the offer must include all the essential element of the contract, there is no concept of ‘invitations to treat’ or of ‘consideration’, the common law posting rule is rejected, and the contract is formed only when the acceptance is received. There are generally few requirements of form but some contracts must be in writing and some in a notarial deed.

The Common Law Legal Tradition: First Things First

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Case Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter explains briefly the origins and development of the common law tradition in order to better understand the rise of judicial review in the seven common law countries discussed in this volume. The common law legal tradition is characterized historically, in public law, by limited, constitutional government and by forms of judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation. In private law, the common law tradition is characterized by judge-made case law, which is the primary source of the law, instead of a massive code being the primary source of the law. The common law tradition is also characterized by reliance on the institution of trial by jury. Judges, rather than scholars, are the key figures who are revered in the common law legal tradition, and this is one of the key things that distinguishes the common law legal tradition from the civil law legal tradition. The common law legal tradition emphasizes judicial power, which explains why it has led to judicial review in the countries studied in this volume. It is the prevailing legal tradition in the four countries with the oldest systems of judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation: the United States, Canada, Australia, and India. Thus, judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation in these four countries is very much shaped by common law attitudes about the roles of judges.

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