The Common Law Mind of George Barton

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 163
Author(s):  
Campbell McLachlan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
The Common ◽  
International Human

Dr George Barton’s remarkable life in the law exemplified two themes of general lasting importance. The first is the need to ensure that, in its progressive development, the New Zealand legal system takes full advantage of its membership of the wider common law family of legal systems. McLachlan argues that this is not merely a matter of optional comparative reference, pursuing a vague notion of transnational law. Rather, consideration of other common law authority is integral to legal reasoning in New Zealand and essential if the New Zealand legal system is to avoid the risk of insularity. The second general theme is the contribution that New Zealand can make to the practical achievement of international human rights, particularly within the same family of legal systems. McLachlan develops these two linked themes by reference to his personal experience of working with Dr Barton on Commonwealth legal matters over the last 30 years.

Municipal Courts and the International Interpretive Principle: Al-Kateb v Godwin

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
The Common ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication

This article examines the decision in Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562. It revisits the suggested ‘heresy‘ that international human rights law may influence the interpretation of the Australian Constitution and other legal texts. Accessing universal human rights law, including in constitutional adjudication, was endorsed in the Bangalore Principles on the Domestic Application of International Human Rights Norms 1988. The author suggests that interpreting statutory language in this way is not dissimilar to the common-law principle of interpreting statutes so as to uphold basic rights. But should an analogous approach be permissible in deciding the meaning of constitutional language? Although arguably invoked by the majority of the High Court in Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1, in the context of declaring the common-law, so far this approach has not been accepted for constitutional elaboration in Australia. But should this be so in the age of global problems and internationalism?

scholarly journals Pojedini aspekti građanskopravnog položaja udatih žena u srednjovjekovnoj Engleskoj

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2/2020) ◽  
pp. 38-61
Author(s):  
Milica Ristić
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Legal Capacity ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Basic Source ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Moment

The arrival of the Norman tribes in the territory of England inevitably meant the influence of the customs of these tribes on the formation of a new legal system, known as „common law”. Soon after, this system established the judicial precedent as the basic source of law, which made it significantly different from European continental legal systems. However, when it came to the position of women, the common law world was the same as the continental legal systems. It was the male world, as evidenced by the famous Blackstone’s thought that husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband. In the moment of marriage, the wife would lose her legal capacity, and her personality would be drowned in her husband’s power over her and her property. Considering many other restrictions on women’s rights that will be addressed in the paper, it is not surprising that widows enjoyed the best status in medieval England, mostly owing to the institute of dower. This injustice was corrected by the emergence of the justice system and especially the trust institute. This paper is dedicated to the stages of development of the rights of married women in medieval England from complete denial to their affirmation, and especially to the contribution of the institutions of equity law to that development.

The Need for a Constitution in the United Kingdom

1979 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-285
Author(s):  
Wilberforce
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Flexible Instrument ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

I was not surprised when, from several alternative subjects, you chose, as the title of my Lecture, the need for a Constitution in Britain. Those of us without a written constitution are indeed, a select club—New Zealand, Israel, the United Kingdom.I will start with a quotation from Lord Salmon. In a recent lecture, he said: In this country [U.K.] we have an unwritten constitution. I have always regarded this as a blessing and never agreed with the theoretical objections to it. It is superbly flexible and above all it has stood the test of time. It works—and works admirably. But I am beginning to wonder whether it might not be wise to evolve, not an elaborate written constitution but perhaps the equivalent of a modern Bill of Rights. A statute which should lay down our basic freedoms, provide for their preservation and enact that it could not be repealed save by, say, a 75% majority of both Houses of Parliament.One can recognize in this passage the views of an eminent common lawyer, believing in the strength and potentialities of the common law as a flexible instrument, in, of course, the right hands: of one who believes deeply in human freedom, and who is concerned about the threat to it: who desires an explicit definition of the basic liberties and who believes that these can be protected by a sufficiently strong, entrenched, legal system. In this he undoubtedly reflects the views of many people, probably of the majority of ordinary men.

scholarly journals Uniform Application of Law in Ethiopia: Effects of Cassation Decisions of the Federal Supreme Court

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Ahmed Tura
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Application Of Law ◽  
Entire Country ◽  
Administrative Agencies ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
The Common ◽  
Federal Supreme

The Ethiopian legal system has transplanted substantial elements from both Continental Law and Common Law legal systems. While the legal system is characterized by its reception of substantial rules from the Continental Law Legal System, there are some concepts transplanted from the Common Law legal system particularly incorporated in the procedural laws. Moreover, under Proclamation No. 454/2005, the interpretation of laws by the Cassation Division of the Federal Supreme Court (hereinafter Cassation Division) is made to have binding authority on all lower courts at all levels in the entire country. Although the Proclamation seems to introduce the doctrine of precedent, there is a debate as to whether what is introduced under the Proclamation amounts to a precedent system or not. Moreover, it is not expressly given whether judicial organs other than regular courts such as administrative agencies or tribunals, religious and customary courts are bound by the decision of the Cassation Division. The Proclamation also does not provide for the effects of overruling and preconditions to overrule previous decisions of the Cassation Division. The purpose of this article is to critically analyze the legal effects of the binding interpretation of law given at cassation by the Federal Supreme Court in the Ethiopian legal system.

Contemporary International Tribunals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Augusto Cançado Trindade Trindade
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Icj ◽  
The Common ◽  
International Human ◽  
International Tribunals

In the course of 2016, international human rights tribunals (ECtHR, IACtHR and ACtHPR) kept on making cross-references to each other’s case-law, as well as to that of other international tribunals. The same has taken place on the part of international criminal tribunals (ICC and ICTFY), at a time of special attention to the preservation of the legacy of the ad hoc tribunals (ICTFY and ICTR). One could have expected the same from the ICJ, as to the case-law of other international tribunals, in its recent decisions in the cases concerning the Obligation of Nuclear Disarmament (2016), keeping in mind the common mission (of realization of justice) of contemporary international tribunals from an essentially humanist outlook.

scholarly journals From Norms to Facts: The Realization of Rights in Common and Civil Private Law

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Dedek
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Common ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
The Ideal

Every legal system that ties judicial decision making to a body of preconceived norms has to face the tension between the normative formulation of the ideal and its approximation in social reality. In the parlance of the common law, it is, more concretely, the remedy that bridges the gap between the ideal and the real, or, rather, between norms and facts. In the common law world—particularly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth—a lively discourse has developed around the question of how rights relate to remedies. To the civilian legal scholar—used to thinking within a framework that strictly categorizes terms like substance and procedure, subjective right, action, and execution—the concept of remedy remains a mystery. The lack of “remedy” in the vocabulary of the civil law is more than just a matter of attaching different labels to functional equivalents, it is the expression of a different way of thinking about law. Only if a legal system is capable of satisfactorily transposing the abstract discourse of the law into social reality does the legal machinery fulfill its purpose: due to the pivotal importance of this translational process, the way it is cast in legal concepts thus allows for an insight into the deep structure of a legal culture, and, convergence notwithstanding, the remaining epistemological differences between the legal traditions of the West. A mixed jurisdiction must reflect upon these differences in order to understand its own condition and to define its future course.

scholarly journals The Transplant of Trusts in Different Legal Jurisdictions: The Example of China

Global Jurist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Terranova
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Original Model ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Legal Institution ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Trust Law

AbstractLegal transplants are considered a significant factor in the evolution of legal systems. One example of transplant of a legal institution through its prestige is the diffusion of the trust from the English legal system to other common law systems and to many civil law countries. One of these is China that in 2001 enacted the Trust Law of the People’s Republic of China. This paper wants to analyse the trust under the Trust Law and to compare it with the original model in the English legal system, understanding how far or how close it is from the original one.

scholarly journals PERBANDINGAN SISTEM HUKUM COMMON LAW, CIVIL LAW DAN ISLAMIC LAW DALAM PERSPEKTIF SEJARAH DAN KARAKTERISTIK BERPIKIR

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Farihan Aulia ◽  
Sholahuddin Al-Fatih
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legal Thinking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Comparative Study

The legal system or commonly referred to as the legal tradition, has a wealth of scientific treasures that can be examined in more depth through a holistic and comprehensive comparative process. Exactly, the comparison of the legal system must accommodate at least three legal systems that are widely used by countries in the world today. The three legal systems are the Continental European legal system, Anglo American and Islamic Law. The comparative study of the three types of legal systems found that the history of the Continental European legal system is divided into 6 phases, while Anglo American legal history began in the feudalistic era of England until it developed into America and continues to be studied until now. Meanwhile, the history of Islamic law is divided into 5 phases, starting from the Phase of the Prophet Muhammad to the Resurrection Phase (19th century until nowadays). In addition to history, the authors find that the Continental European legal system has the characteristic of anti-formalism thinking, while the Anglo American legal thinking characteristic tends to be formalism and is based on a relatively primitive mindset. While the thinking character of Islamic Law is much influenced by the thought of the fuqoha (fiqh experts) in determining the law to solve a problem, so relatively dynamic and moderate.

The Experiences of Civil Lawyers When Studying the Common Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Margaret Fordham
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
The Common

AbstractThis article examines the issues experienced by civil lawyers when studying the common law. It considers the extent of the differences between common law and civil law legal systems, examines the challenges which students from civil law jurisdictions face when first exposed to the common law, analyses the various ways in which these challenges may be met, and summarises civilians’ overall impressions of the common law.

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