Common law

During the 17th century in the Colonial period early Americans didn’t have any suited rules, or laws to protect themselves from criminal behavior. During those years Americans developed their own mechanisms to then enforce the rules of society as well as punishing offenders. Today those are taken over by the police, courts, and corrections. Before any former laws were established in the United States, Americans relied on religion and sins to improve people’s life. That’s why many of their…

Legalism was based off a fixed system of laws that defined a specific fixed penalty for each certain offense. Legalism had no bias or changing of the penalties, no matter what class or circumstances, there wasn’t even an exception for the ruler who was considered to be above the law. While working a case judges had to find out what the crime was and then the punishment was given immediately, since penalties were fixed. On page 59, when Judge Dee begins to suspect Mrs. Djou of killing her…

In the article written by Mike O’Mara, a defense lawyer, O’Mara lays out his opinions on how awful the case of Ethan Couch, the affluenza teen, turned out. He described, in a very cynical tone, how taken aback he was when the defense gave their argument, and what made it worse is that the judge lessened Couch’s sentence because he was to rich and spoiled to know right from wrong. O’Mara alluded to other cases he believed did deserve a break showing how this teen responsible for killing four was…

Law is much like a vessel; it helps society remain afloat and functioning through means of justice, equality and higher authority. The importance it possesses in enforcing jurisdictions – alongside the diversity in areas of everyday life in which law influences – is why it is the career I seek to pursue. Exposure to cases such as the Oscar Pistorius trial reaffirmed my interest as avidly following hearings underlined significant differences within penial systems. Studying law would provide me a…

Has there ever been accidents that defendants have done that is so negligent, that when people hear about it they simply cannot help but shake their heads and ask “what were they thinking of?” The term res ipsa loquitur is very similar to that type of thinking. Res ipsa loquitur is derived from the Latin language and when translated means “the thing speaks for itself” It is a doctrine that specifies that a breach of a party's duty of care may be concluded from the events that occurred…

Critical Book Review: Case Critical by Ben Carniol Ben Carniol’s book, Case Critical: Social Services and Justice in Canada, is an exploratory piece of literature that presents a detailed picture of Canada’s social welfare system, through the viewpoints of social workers and, more significantly, social service users. Carniol offers an examination of the challenges and barriers faced by structural social workers within social service organizations in Canada. The use of personal and external…

In his article, “Paternalism and the Ill-Informed Agent,” Jason Hanna refutes the anti-paternalist’s use of the ignorance exception to justify intervention on the ill-informed agent’s behalf. As Hanna sees it, the use of the ignorance exception does not provide the anti-paternalist with any more justification to intervene on the ill-informed agent’s behalf than the justification used by the paternalist to intervene on the fully-informed agent’s behalf. If this is the case, there is no reason for…

into a contract. Law will not support a party if their reason is simply a mistake or misunderstood a contract. However, the requirement is planned to protect people of senior age, mental disability from being taken advantage of who may not fully understand of what they’re doing. At first, there is a presumption that a contracting party has full capacity. If it does become an issue after a contract has been entered into, it will be the job of the party claiming…

where there are (virtually or literally) no poor, no class struggles, no crimes, etc. More’s Utopia, as described through the recollection of the landless traveler/philosopher Raphael Hythloday, achieves these ends primarily through its commonplace “laws,” i.e., its distributed model of property. Jonathan Swift’s scathing satire “A Modest Proposal…” sardonically depicts a society where the solution to poverty and to the struggle of the poor lies in the resale and culinary value of the poor’s…

According to ELSI, arbitrary conduct was described as ‘a wilful disregard of due process of law’ capable of shocking or surprising the sense of juridical propriety. The ICJ’s description of an arbitrary conduct has also been accepted by Canada and Mexico as the most instructive expression on the arbitrariness of a conduct. Whether the NAFTA parties…