Milton and Legal Reform

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison A. Chapman

AbstractThe second half of the seventeenth century was the first great period of legal reform in England’s history. This article situates John Milton in relationship to this contemporary context, arguing that he comments frequently on the need to change England’s laws and displays a finely tuned awareness of some of the major legal debates of his time. This article surveys Milton’s writings about the law and legal education, and it concludes by examining his 1659–60 political pamphlets where he calls for reform of the judicial system and the establishment of local courts.

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-92
Author(s):  
Christopher John Donato

This essay seeks to put to rest the notion that John Milton was an antinomian, by offering a concise summation of the relevant chapters of De doctrina Christiana that discuss his views on the covenants, the law and the gospel, and Christian liberty.1 Defining antinomian is a difficult task, as its manifestations throughout history have not been monolithic.2 During the seventeenth century in England, two kinds, broadly speaking, existed: 1) doctrinal antinomianism; and 2) licentious antinomianism.


2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (187) ◽  
pp. 112-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfrid Prest

Abstract Having compounded as a delinquent for attending Charles I at Oxford, the common lawyer Sir Peter Ball (1598–1680) sought to make his peace with the Commonwealth. Ball's scheme for remodelling both the law itself and legal education at the inns of court is transcribed below, together with a covering letter forwarded to Bulstrode Whitelocke in 1649. His criticisms and positive proposals provide further evidence that the traditional mode of legal education by aural learning exercises had become widely perceived by the mid seventeenth century as both pedagogically ineffective and practically irrelevant to the training of common lawyers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (04) ◽  
pp. 973-992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Adam Sachs

This article offers a way of thinking about colonial-era legal reform that departs from traditional narratives by highlighting the importance of legal ambiguity in state building projects. Following the establishment of “Native Administration” in the Sudan in the early 1920s, the British colonial government conferred expansive judicial and administrative powers on tribal sheikhs and nazirs (chiefs), while at the same time discouraging many attempts to formalize or standardize those powers, preferring instead that they remain informal and undefined. This policy, which I term “strategic ambiguity,” emerged out of a belief that tribal leaders would be more effective if they possessed maximum discretion and judicial flexibility, even though the result was a colonial government woefully ill-informed about much of its own judicial system. These findings point to a way of thinking about colonial-era legal reform in which governmental ignorance was actually productive of sovereignty, and not an obstacle to it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-223
Author(s):  
Muhammad Rustamaji

This article discusses the legal thought from Barda Nawawi Arief, named biomijuridika. The concept of biomijuridika is actually an invitation for legal learner to reflect on whether the life of law and the development of law in Indonesia are secular. If jurisprudence contains in it the science of “regulating or arranging”, Barda questioned is not “God Most Regulating and Arranging”, and therefore the law must also be in accordance with God’s teachings. Therefore according to Barda, legal education and legal science in Indonesia should not be secular. Consequently, legal education and national law must also explore and examine the law of the One Godhead. This article shows that in the Indonesian context, the biomijuridika of Barda are actually in line with the Pancasila as the state foundation. On the basis of Pancasila, the life of the nation and state of Indonesia must be based on the Pancasila, which in the life of the law means must, one of them, be based on the One Godhead. However, the legal thought of biomijuridika from Barda still seems to leave a discourse space that seems to have not been answered thoroughly, namely when this concept was proposed as one of the alternative models of legal reform especially in the field of criminal law. Such criticism in particular can be examined in the facets of the development of theoretical and practical law. Abstrak Artikel ini membahas pemikiran hukum dari Barda Nawawi Arief yang diberi nama biomijuridika. Konsep biomijuridika sejatinya sebuah ajakan bagi pembelajar hukum untuk merenung tentang apakah kehidupan berhukum dan pengembangan hukum di Indonesia bersifat sekuler. Jika ilmu hukum mengandung di dalamnya ilmu “mengatur atau menata”, Barda mempertanyakan bukankah “Tuhan Maha Mengatur dan Maha Menata”, dan karenanya hukum pun mesti sesuai dengan ajaran Tuhan. Oleh karenanya menurut Barda pendidikan hukum dan ilmu hukum di Indonesia seharusnya tidak bersifat sekuler. Konsekuensinya, pendidikan tinggi hukum dan ilmu hukum nasional harus juga menggali dan mengkaji ilmu hukum berketuhanan Yang Maha Esa. Artikel ini menunjukkan bahwa dalam konteks Indonesia, biomijuridika dari Barda sesungguhnya sejalan dengan dasar negara Pancasila. Dengan dasar negara Pancasila, maka kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara Indonesia mesti didasarkan pada Pancasila, yang dalam kehidupan berhukum berarti mesti, salah satunya, didasarkan pada “Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa”. Namun demikian, pemikiran hukum biomijuridika dari Barda tampaknya masih menyisakan ruang diskursus yang agaknya belum dijawab dengan tuntas, yaitu ketika konsep ini diajukan sebagai salah satu model alternatif pembaruan hukum utamanya pada bidang hukum pidana. Kritik demikian khususnya dapat dicermati pada faset pengembanan hukum teoretis dan pengembanan hukum praktis.


1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W Cairns

This article, in earlier versions presented as a paper to the Edinburgh Roman Law Group on 10 December 1993 and to the joint meeting of the London Roman Law Group and London Legal History Seminar on 7 February 1997, addresses the puzzle of the end of law teaching in the Scottish universities at the start of the seventeenth century at the very time when there was strong pressure for the advocates of the Scots bar to have an academic education in Civil Law. It demonstrates that the answer is to be found in the life of William Welwood, the last Professor of Law in St Andrews, while making some general points about bloodfeud in Scotland, the legal culture of the sixteenth century, and the implications of this for Scottish legal history. It is in two parts, the second of which will appear in the next issue of the Edinburgh Law Review.


Author(s):  
Yaroslav Skoromnyy ◽  

The article presents the conceptual foundations of bringing judges to civil and legal liability. It was found that the civil and legal liability of judges is one of the types of legal liability of judges. It is determined that the legislation of Ukraine provides for a clearly delineated list of the main cases (grounds) for which the state is liable for damages for damage caused to a legal entity and an individual by illegal actions of a judge as a result of the administration of justice. It has been proved that bringing judges to civil and legal liability, in particular on the basis of the right of recourse, provides for the payment of just compensation in accordance with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. It was established that the bringing of judges to civil and legal liability in Ukraine is regulated by such legislative documents as the Constitution of Ukraine, the Civil Code of Ukraine, the Explanatory Note to the European Charter on the Status of Judges (Model Code), the Law of Ukraine «On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges», the Law of Ukraine «On the procedure for compensation for harm caused to a citizen by illegal actions of bodies carrying out operational-search activities, pre-trial investigation bodies, prosecutors and courts», Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in the case on the constitutional submission of the Supreme Court of Ukraine regarding the compliance of the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of certain provisions of Article 2, paragraph two of clause II «Final and transitional provisions» of the Law of Ukraine «On measures to legislatively ensure the reform of the pension system», Article 138 of the Law of Ukraine «On the judicial system and the status of judges» (the case on changes in the conditions for the payment of pensions and monthly living known salaries of judges lagging behind in these), the Law of Ukraine «On the implementation of decisions and the application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights».


Author(s):  
Hélène Visentin

This article focuses on the practice of machine theater that originated from courtly spectacles in Italy during the Renaissance and developed throughout Western and Central Europe during the seventeenth century. Defined by rapid scene changes and special effects, machine plays reflect the Baroque fascination with both mechanical devices and the law of optics—or scenery perspective—to produce wonder while displaying royal power and prestige. The aim of this article is threefold: to provide an overview of the origins and development of machine theater, to examine the transmission and dissemination of stagecraft knowledge, and to look at the changing nature of machine plays performed by public theater companies, which took advantage of stage machinery innovations to broaden their repertoire, attract a larger audience, and remain competitive.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Helmholz

Most recent historians have expressed a negative opinion of the quality of legal education at the English universities between 1400 and 1650. The academic study of law at Oxford and Cambridge, they have stated, was easy, antiquated and impractical. The curriculum had not changed from the form it assumed in the thirteenth century, and it did little to prepare students for their careers. This article challenges that opinion by examining the inner nature of the ius commune, the law that was applied in the courts of the church, and also by examining some of the works of practice compiled by English civilians during the period. Those works show that the negative opinion rests in part upon a misunderstanding of the nature of legal practice during earlier centuries. In fact, concentration on the texts of the Roman and canon laws, as old-fashioned as it seems to us, was well suited for the tasks advocates and judges would face once they left the academy. It also provided the stimulus needed for advance in the law of the church itself; their legal education made available to potential advocates and judges skills that would permit a sophisticated application of the ius commune, one better suited to their times. The article provides evidence of how this happened.1


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