Judges, Legislators and Professors: Chapters in European Legal History: 1984-1985 (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/3/1987
EAN 9780521340779, ISBN10: 0521340772
Hardcover, 216 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
In Judges, legislators and professors one of the world's foremost legal historians shows how and why continental and common law have come to diverge so sharply. Using ten specific examples he investigates the development of European law, not as the manifestation of certain ideological and intellectual trends, but as largely the result of power struggles between the judiciary, the legislators, and legal scholars, each representing certain political and social ambitions. Now available in paperback, Judges, legislators and professors provides an historical introduction to continental law which is readily accessible to readers familiar with the common law tradition and vice-versa.
Part I. The Common Law is Different
Ten Illustrations
1. The ambiguity of the term 'law'
2. Appeal
a recent development
3. English law is a 'seamless web'
4. The rule of exclusion
5. A land without a constitution?
6. The consequences of parliamentary absolutism
7. The haphazard development of criminal law
8. Prosecution and verdict in criminal trials
9. A law uncodified
Jurists are dispensable
Part II. The Mastery of the Law
Judges, Legislators and Professors
10. Some facts
11. Explanations
the 'national spirit'?
12. Explanations
authoritarian Roman law and democratic England?
13. Explanations
political history
Part III. The Divergent Paths of Common Law and Civil Law
14. Common law and civil law
the parting of the ways
15. The ways remain separate
16. Which diverged from which?
Part VI. Which is Best, Case Law, Statute Law, Or Book Law
17. The judges
amateurs and professionals
18. The courts and their creators
19. Codification
a weapon against the judiciary
20. Law professors serve the powers that be
21. Eight criteria of good law.