New England

2019 ◽  
pp. 24-42
Author(s):  
William E. Nelson

This chapter focuses mainly on developments in the law of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was founded as a Puritan utopia to display to rest of the world how a society should be governed. Although Massachusetts incorporated elements of the common law into its legal system, the dominant source of law was the word of God. But the divine word, which was enforced by the magistrates of the Court of Assistants, sometimes met resistance from local juries. A major issue throughout the 1630s and 1640s was whether the magistrates or local people would have final authority to determine the substance of the law; the issue was resolved in 1649 by providing for appeals in all cases of judge-jury disagreement to the General Court sitting as a unicameral body in which representatives of localities outnumbered the magistrates and thus had final authority. The chapter ends with a brief look at legal developments in Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth, and Rhode Island.

Author(s):  
John Gardner

This chapter explores the idea that labour law rests on ‘a contractual foundation’, and the idea that work relations today are ever more ‘contractualised’. Section 1 lays out some essentials of British labour law and its connections with the common law of contract. Section 2 explains what contractualisation is, not yet focusing attention on the specific context of labour law. The main claims are that contract is not a specifically legal device, and that contractualisation is therefore not a specifically legal process, even when the law is complicit in it. Section 3 shifts attention to the world of work, especially the employment relationship. Here the main ideas are that the employment relationship is not (apart from the law) a contractual relationship, and that all the norms of the employment relationship cannot therefore be captured adequately in a contract, legally binding or otherwise. Section 4 illustrates the latter point by focusing on the rationale and the limits of the employer’s authority over the employee. A contractual rationale yields the wrong limits. It gives its blessing to authoritarian work regimes and lends credence to the miserable view that work is there to pay for the life of the worker without forming part of that life. Throughout the chapter there are intimations of the conclusion drawn in section 5: that contractualisation, in the labour market at least, is a process that lovers of freedom, as well as lovers of self-realisation, should resist—or rather, should have resisted while they still had the chance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Abdul Majid ◽  
Sri Yogamalar ◽  
Audrey Kim Lan Siah ◽  
Jane L Y Terpstra-Tong ◽  
Luc Borrowman

In a landmark case in 2016, Malaysia’s apex court, the Federal Court, explicitly recognised for the first time, the common law tort of sexual harassment. Actually, the Federal Court did more than that; its recognition of the common law tort of sexual harassment is built on its recognising the common law tort of harassment. The recognition of the tort of harassment has escaped notice because attention has been concentrated on the tort of sexual harassment. This article analyses the Federal Court’s exposition of the tort of sexual harassment to reveal that the exegesis itself acknowledges the existence of the tort of harassment per se. The tort of harassment that the Federal Court sent out into the world is largely a creature of its English common law ancestry.


Author(s):  
Gary F Bell

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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qianlan Wu

The rule of law as a globally recognised concept is multi-faceted (Chesterman, 2008). In the common-law tradition, it is conceived through a formal and substantive framework. In essence, it centres on the supremacy of the law over the arbitrary exercise of power and the formal legality of the law (Tamanaha, 2004, p. 115; Cotterrell, 1992, p. 157). The rule-of-law concept has been criticised as being of unique European origin, where plural social organisation and universal natural law constitute its two preconditions (Unger, 1977, pp. 80–110). It has, however, been advocated around the world as one essential principle leading to modernity, where the legitimacy of the law based on the formal and substantive rule of law serves as a strong symbol for a modern society (Deflem, 1996, p. 5).


2018 ◽  
pp. 157-175
Author(s):  
Jenny Hale Pulsipher

This chapter looks at the war between the colonists and many of the surrounding Native peoples in New England, which began in late June 1675. Initially, it involved only the English of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoags under their sachem Philip Metacom—also known as King Philip—but the conflict quickly spread to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and northern New England, drawing in English and Indian combatants from all of those locales, including the Nipmucs of the central Massachusetts highlands. Few groups suffered more during King Philip's War than the Christian Indians, caught as they were between the distrust of their Indian kin and the English to whom they had pledged their loyalty. Their treatment by the English during and after King Philip's War fueled John Wompas's growing anger against the Massachusetts government, which would explode on his return to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1677.


Author(s):  
Rizal Sofyan Gueci

The Constitution has laid the foundation of checks and balances amongst the main state organs namely the executive, the legislative and the judicial power. This order as a guideline in the state and society, till the Village  level and within groups in the village such as the Neighborhood and citizen groups. Servitut Rights and neighbors law answer challenges of development of human settlements sustainably and resilient.  Servitut rights as a property rights regulated in Neighbor law book II Indonsian Civil Code of 1848 or in adat law term called easement (hak melalui tanah orang lain) which known by adat community entity is not older than the easement is recognized by customary law in almost adat law community entity throughout the territory of Indonesia.  The servitut right is the easement of yard (erfdiensbaarheid) or burden to rest on the grounds that one for the benefit of the another yard such that the owner of the yard were crushed should let the owner of the yard oppressor to pass through, drain the water (clear) on it, take view out through the window etc. This devotion land does not end with the death or replacement of yard owners concerned (Article 674 of the Indon. Civil Code). There are still remnants of feudalism and colonialism in tribal society, reflecting the concrete cases in the community there is disturbance against the rights of servitut with vigilante, then the rule of law invoked repeatedly and generating permanent jurisprudence. Kedudukannya hak servitut tidak tergoyahkan dengan adanya UUPA 1960 yang mengatakan semua hak atas tanah mempunyai fungsi sosial dan hukum adat dijadikan dasar dari hukum agraria nasional. The position of Servitut rights is impregnable with the Basic Agrarian Law 1960 (BAL) that says all rights on land has social functions and customary law form the basis of the national agrarian law. In Article I point 6 of BAL No. 5 year 1960 proves Indonesia is in a row of civilized countries that accommodates this legal institution. Jurisprudence confirm customary law as a living law as well as the Civil Code 1848 according to Supreme Court Circuler of 1963 treat as unwritten customary law in order to prevent the legal vacuum and reaching the objectives of the law. Jurisprudence has been recognized as one of the legitimate source of law in the Republic of Indonesia.  Indonesian Judges have shown its class in the world of justice, who did not want to look different in servitut rights issues which is an universal phenomenon. Almost all civilized countries of the UN members have recognized the existence of this institute servitut rights, both in the Code book as well as in its jurisprudence. Servitut rights institution is rooted in the common law ius commune since Roman Empire, which can not be ignored, despite overall individualistic Roman law, but in particular there are elements of social function. Servitut (lat.) is accommodated into the book of the law in almost all countries in the world, through colonialize, import law, voluntary transplants in the law of one self. Boedi Harsono, as nationalist and socialist thinker and R. Supomo as father of Indonesian customary law and by youth in 1928 is regarded as a national law with the smooth call it "right through another person's land" which is also known by the common law. The permanent Jurisprudence remains threngthen unwritten norm servitut rights or land rights through anothers person’s land showed the class of Indonesian Judges comparabele with justices of developed nations in assessing this servitut rights. Implementation build without displacing has been regulated in Law No. 4 year 1992 art. 22-32 and Act No. 1 year 2011 on Housing and Settlement Region art. 106-113 law institute land consolidation, which is compatible with the institute servitut right and reconfirmed the servitut.  Implementation, if one developer alone could make the plot and make the land ready to build cosolidate up to 6,000 ha orderly development of land, so a province or a local government / city are challenged to be able to hold up to 6,000 ha of land consolidation to reduce the backlog and combating land speculators. For the assessment of achievement of the Governor / Regional Office of BPN how long had a special local street, public street or road of servitut rights through land consolidation and how many special streets that have been submitted become public streets.Keywords: Reinforcement, top notch institutions, rights servituut


2019 ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
William E. Nelson

This chapter examines England’s conquest of New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664 and the gradual replacement of Dutch civil law with English common law, plus the efforts of Charles II and James II to replace the word of God with the common law in Massachusetts and the rest of New England. The Crown’s purpose in imposing the common law was to replace Dutch laymen and Puritan ministers as community leaders with English lawyers, who would receive patronage and therefore be loyal to the Crown while they were paid by private clients whom they counseled to follow the common law. Needless to say, both the Dutch and the Puritans resisted.


1930 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-211
Author(s):  
Edward C. Moore

An Impressive thing is happening in these days. We are observing the Tercentenary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The common verdict has been for a long time rather against the Puritans. Their civil administration is declared to have been at times tyrannical, their ecclesiastical order prejudiced, even bigoted. Individuals among them appear to us fanatical. Such accusations have become almost traditional. At the present moment however the mind of our country and in some measure of the world has turned again to the contemplation of the Puritan history. We recall their deeds and suffering. It is realized how one-sided is the judgment alluded to. There is a disposition to recognize how great was their service to our country and to modern men. This is the mind of some who by no means share the solemn earnestness, the rigidity, the zealotry of the typical Puritan character. Perhaps no generation of our countrymen has ever been further removed than is our own from Puritan standards. Yet there is this widespread feeling that justice is not always done them. We may owe to them something of the larger liberty and more comfortable existence which, coming generations after them, we now enjoy and which apparently we might not have enjoyed had we lived among them.


1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Susan Rose-Ackerman

Some lawyers view the law as a self-contained body of wisdom independent of the contaminating influences of other branches of knowledge. Such lawyers resist efforts to combine law with economics. In doing so, the author argues that these lawyers miss an opportunity for gaining a deeper understanding of the way law works in the world. This article thus explores the relationship between economics as a methodology, public policy, and the law. The author first tackles the argument that the economist's concentration on efficiency is flawed because it is unconcerned with justice. The author then discusses the role of economics in light of collective decision-making found throughout society. Economics and the design of efficient regulatory schemes are also discussed, as well as in the comparative law context. It is argued that the intersection between the common law and economics must be widely accepted, even though it suffers from limitations in resolving difficult policy issues. Thus, the author concludes that economic analysis alone cannot be an all-purpose resolver of the problems of the modern capitalist welfare state. Nonetheless, economic frameworks remain useful for lawyerly thinking; law and economics must thus be joined by a broader range of subjects, including political science and public administration. 


1983 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-75
Author(s):  
Aharon Barak

The English Bills of Exchange Act—which is the source of legislation on negotiable instruments in most of the countries formerly connected with the British Commonwealth of Nations, including Israel's Bills of Exchange Ordinance—has been described as “the best drafted Act of Parliament ever passed. That explains why most of the problems which have come before the courts have been resolved within the strict framework of the law, through the application of one or another of the provisions of that Act. Those provisions can be regarded as amply covering the common commercial situations with which the world of finance is today familiar. This state of affairs has clear advantages; but, at the same time, it has its negative consequences too. Since the enactment of the Act in 1882, the courts—and, following in their footsteps, a majority of legal scholars—in the common law countries have ceased to give any thought to the theoretical nature of the negotiable instrument.


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