Common law

About: Common law is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 30135 publications have been published within this topic receiving 280701 citations. The topic is also known as: judicial precedent & judge-made law.

Bella's case : Parsi identity and the law in colonial Rangoon, Bombay and London, 1887-1925

Abstract: This dissertation explores the ways in which the ethnic identity of South Asia's Parsis was forged through litigation in the British colonial courts. The Parsis were Zoroastrians who fled to India after the seventh-century conquest of Persia by Arab Muslims. Under British rule, they became an elite of intermediary traders and professionals. Around 1900, a series of lawsuits erupted on the admission of ethnic outsiders into the Parsi community through intermarriage, conversion, and adoption. This dissertation is a study of the most extensive of these cases, the Privy Council appeal of Saklat v Bella (1914-25). The case erupted when an Indian orphan named Bella was adopted by Parsis in Rangoon, initiated into the Zoroastrian religion, and taken into the Rangoon fire temple, a space arguably desecrated by the presence of ethnic outsiders. Through an examination of case papers and judges' notebooks from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (London) and the Bombay High Court (Mumbai), the dissertation explores competing visions of Parsi identity that were promoted by reformist and orthodox Parsis as litigants, witnesses, lawyers, judges, and journalists. Bella's case highlights two sorts of displacement. First, a patrilineal definition of Parsi identity was overtaken in this period by a more exclusive, eugenics-based racial model. As anxieties over communal extinction peaked with the advent of the census, orthodox Parsis clung to the notion of Persian racial purity, excluding Indian, Burmese, and European outsiders with renewed tenacity. Second, the colonial legal system's reconfiguration of Parsi religious institutions as trusts unravelled the authority of Zoroastrian priests as arbiters of religious doctrine. On a larger scale, Saklat v Bella illustrates how a "centripetal jurisprudence" contributed to the creation of a unitary "legal India" and an empire of common law. It is also a story about legal pluralism and the rise of a non-European legal profession in the colonial context. Parsis rose to prominence as lawyers and judges in this period, and used their legal influence to carve out a space for Zoroastrian legal identity.

Modern Company and Capital Market Problems: Improving European Corporate Governance after Enron

Abstract: Improving European corporate governance after Enron requires rethinking company and capital market regulation and law reforms. This article - which is an updated version (footnotes and references only, summer 2006) of an earlier one published in (2003) 3 Journal of Corporate Law Studies 221-268 - discusses shareholder decision-making; the choice between the one-tier and the two-tier board system; appointment, compensation and audit committees with a majority of independent members; checks on exorbitant payments to the directors; a special investigation procedure and wrongful trading. As to capital markets a European framework rule on prospectus liabilty is proposed. A key problem is the need for loyal and competent intermediaries. Since the 13th Directive is only a compromise solution, the hopes are pinned on the Court to continue its golden share case law. The German Volkswagen Act will be a test case.

Introduction to the Law and Legal System of the United States

Abstract: This text provides an introduction to U.S. law. It is intended for law students, lawyers, and legal scholars from foreign countries; U.S. graduate and undergraduate college students; members of the general reading public in the United States; and anyone who seeks a """"big picture"""" of the law and legal system. Not a casebook, it explains the major substantive areas of the law in narrative form with citations to cases and sources for additional detail. In addition to covering the principal substantive areas of the law, the book has chapters on: essential basic history and governmental structure necessary to an understanding of the legal system; the legal profession; the theory and practice of the adversary system of justice; and statutory interpretation and case law reasoning.

Courts: The Lex Mundi project

Abstract: In cooperation with Lex Mundi member law firms in 109 countries, we measure and describe the exact procedures used by litigants and courts to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect a bounced check. We use these data to construct an index of procedural formalism of dispute resolution for each country. We find that such formalism is systematically greater in civil than in common law countries. Moreover, procedural formalism is associated with higher expected duration of judicial proceedings, more corruption, less consistency, less honesty, less fairness in judicial decisions, and inferior access to justice. These results suggest that legal transplantation may have led to an inefficiently high level of procedural formalism, particularly in developing countries.

The Oxford history of the laws of England

Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgments Abbreviations INTRODUCTORY I. The History of Law and the History of Disputes ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND II. Kings and Law III. Courts IV. Court Procedure V. Land VI. Movables VII. Theft and Violence VIII. Status IX. Family and Marriage X. Conclusion ANGLO-NORMAN ENGLAND XI. Kings and Law XII. Courts XIII. Court Procedure XIV. Land XV. Movables XVI. Theft and Violence XVII. Status XVIII. Family and Marriage XIX. Forest Laws from Anglo-Saxon England to the Early Thirteenth Century XX. Conclusion ANGEVIN ENGLAND XXI. Kings and Law XXII. Courts XXIII. Court Procedure in Land Cases XXIV. Land XXV. Movables XXVI. Agreements and Debt XXVII. Theft and Violence XXVIII. Status XXIX. Family and Marriage XXX. Borough Law XXXI. Magna Carta and the Common Law Appendix: The Sources Bibliography