Law reform and legal education in Interregnum England

2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (187) ◽  
pp. 112-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfrid Prest
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Covering Letter ◽  
Inns Of Court ◽  
Aural Learning ◽  
Traditional Mode ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

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.

Milton and Legal Reform

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison A. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
The Law ◽  
Local Courts ◽  
Political Pamphlets ◽  
Contemporary Context

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.

19. The doctrine of frustration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Macdonald ◽  
Ruth Atkins ◽  
Jens Krebs
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Islamic Republic ◽  
Islamic Republic Of Iran ◽  
Commercial Purpose ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter investigates the scope of the doctrine of frustration which was developed to deal with cases where events occur after a contract is made which render the agreement illegal, or impossible to perform, or which fundamentally change the nature of the obligations undertaken by the parties. The doctrine operates within strict limits and its use is restricted in cases where, although the commercial purpose of the contract has been drastically affected by unforeseen events, the performance of the contract is still possible. The position under the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 and under the common law, including for example, the recent cases of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines v Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association (Bermuda) Ltd and Olympic Airlines SA (in Special Liquidation) v ACG Acquisition XX LLC, are examined, collectively demonstrating how the doctrine currently operates.

scholarly journals Law, Language and the Printing Press in the Reign of Charles I: Explaining the Printing of the Common Law in English

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-371
Author(s):  
Ian Williams
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Charles I ◽  
Professional Control ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Long Term Trend

The printing press had the potential to break the common lawyers' monopoly of legal knowledge. Early-modern England witnessed debates about the desirability of wider dissemination of legal learning. Previous scholarship has identified the long-term trend to increased printing of the law in English, focusing on ideological debates between lawyers and other key actors. Only selected texts and types of material were made available to the wider public before the 1620s. From the later 1620s a wider range of material which had hitherto existed only in manuscript was printed in English. Knowledge of the common law became more commonly available. This article identifies this crucial moment and explains the change. Rather than the ideological questions which are discussed in the existing literature, more mundane causes are identified for the legal profession's reduced control over the transmission of legal knowledge: a shift to the use of English by lawyers themselves, and a loss of professional control over manuscripts. The paper therefore demonstrates an important methodological point: understanding and assessing the history of legal printing requires engagement with older methods of transmitting the law.

Reforming the Law of Evidence in Nigeria

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-129
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Of Evidence

The Nigerian Law Reform Commission has recently published a Report on the Reform of the Evidence Act. This was in response to a government directive to “review and reform our Evidence Act to ensure that its application more effectively facilitates the dispensation of justice in our courts”. The Report notes that the Evidence Ordinance was based on Stephen's Digest of the Law of Evidence and on the common law of England as it was in 1943. Understandably, the Report recognizes that the law of evidence had become outdated, especially in view of technological advances. As it notes:

Time for an English Commercial Code?

1997 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-536
Author(s):  
Dame Mary Arden
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Commercial Code ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
The Common ◽  
Systematic Development ◽  
The Law ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
Law Commission

Parliament has imposed on the Law Commission the duty to review the law of England and Wales “with a view to its systematic development and reform, including in particular the codification of [the] law … and generally the simplification and modernisation of the law”. There are a number of points which flow from this. First, as a body which reviews great swathes of the common law to see if they require to be modernised or simplified, the Law Commission has a unique standpoint from which to view the strengths and weaknesses of the common law method. Second, it has unique experience of law reform and the Parliamentary process. Third, in discharge of its functions, it has an interest in seeing that, if codification is appropriate, a recommendation to that effect is made to the Lord Chancellor. It need not be the Law Commission which carries out the recommendation, and indeed the Law Commission could not carry out a project purely of its own initiative.

scholarly journals Smith v Chief Constable of Sussex Police; [2008] UKHL; 50

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Exclusive Focus

WHO HAS FIRST CLAIM ON “THE LOYALTY OF THE LAW”?Smith v Chief Constable of the Sussex Police (hereafter Smith) was heard by the House of Lords at the same time as Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Police v Van Colle and another because they had two uniting factors. First, they both concerned the recurring question of the ambit of police liability in the situation described by Lord Bingham thus: “…if the police are alerted to a threat that D may kill or inflict violence on V, and the police take no action to prevent that occurrence, and D does kill or inflict violence on V, may V or his relatives obtain civil redress against the police, and if so, how and in what circumstances?”2  Secondly, considering the cases together highlighted the wider issue of the relationship between decisions under the Human Rights Act 1998 (hereafter the HRA) and the development of the common law. The Law Lords embarked on a more extensive examination of these issues in Smith and thus that case will be the exclusive focus of this note.  In addition, the study of Smith raises questions regarding proposals for law reform as well as about judicial perceptions of policy priorities. 

Blackstone

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Orth
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
First Century ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Law Professors

This chapter focuses on Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), the author of the most important book in the history of the common law. The four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) and the series of lectures Blackstone delivered at Oxford from 1753, changed the way lawyers thought about the law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were read by more people, non-lawyers as well as lawyers, than any other English law book. Their influence is difficult to overstate, and extends into the twenty-first century. Almost as momentous was Blackstone’s influence on legal education. While gradual, the transfer of legal education from the law office and the courts to the university, which Blackstone pioneered, had an enormous impact on legal development, as law professors contributed to the formation of generations of lawyers and themselves came to play a significant role in legal development.

The Legal Profession

2019 ◽  
pp. 165-184
Author(s):  
John Baker
Keyword(s):  
General Practitioners ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Law School ◽  
Inns Of Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

This chapter traces the history of the English legal profession, which begins around 1200. From the start there was a distinction between advocacy and attorneyship. The pleaders in the Court of Common Pleas became around 1300 the order of serjeants at law, from whom the superior judges were chosen. A law school for ‘apprentices of the Bench’ in the thirteenth century was remodelled in the next century as a collegiate system, the inns of court and chancery, with its own learning exercises and degrees (bencher and barrister). Barristers practised as advocates, but not in the Common Pleas. In Tudor times solicitors appeared, as general practitioners. Serjeants lost their primacy to the newer rank of king’s counsel, but survived into Victorian times. Accounts are given of the judiciary and its independence, of the Civilian practitioners in Doctors’ Commons, and of the transfer of legal education to the universities.

Justice for All? Two Bad Arguments (and Several Good Suggestions) for Resisting Double Jeopardy Reform

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 197-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Recent Analysis ◽  
Double Jeopardy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
General Assent

The government's latest proposals for double jeopardy law reform leave many unanswered questions and causes for concern regarding their scope and impact. However, the merits of such proposals can only be properly evaluated by viewing them in the broader context of constitutional criminal procedure. It is contended that the true significance of the double jeopardy prohibition is rooted in the constitutional value of the finality of acquittals. Two further supposed rationales for the prohibition, drawn from the Law Commission's recent analysis, are canvassed and conclusively rejected. The common law's ancient ban on double jeopardy is underpinned neither by the well-motivated desire to avoid distressful trials, nor by the promotion of investigative efficiency. Further reform debates would be facilitated by general assent to this clarification.

The Right to Indemnity between Master and Servant

1956 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Jolowicz
Keyword(s):  
Cold Storage ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Recent Case ◽  
Legal Principle ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Court Of Appeal

The proposition that a master, who has become liable for an injury caused by a servant acting in the course of his employment, can recover an indemnity from the servant is one which has been stated on a number of occasions, but until the recent case of Romford Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Lister no clear authority could be cited in support. It is true that the master's rights against his servant have been canvassed in at least three modern cases, but in all of them the common law position has been obscured by the application of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935. In Romford Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Lister, however, by what those interested in legal principle can only regard as a happy chance, it was necessary for the Court of Appeal to deal with the matter independently of the Act.

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