Influence of Blackstone
Of extraordinary influence in the development of common law and in its dissemination to other parts of the world was the most famous of English jurists, Sir William Blackstone. He was born in 1723, entered the bar in 1746, and in 1758 became the first person to lecture on English law at an English university.
Blackstone, Sir William
Blackstone, Sir William
Sir William Blackstone, oil painting attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
His most influential work, the Commentaries on the Laws of England, was published between 1765 and 1769 and consisted of four books: Of the Rights of Persons dealt with family and public law; Of the Rights of Things gave a brilliant outline of real-property law; Of Private Wrongs covered civil liability, courts, and procedure; and Of Public Wrongs was an excellent study of criminal law.
Blackstone was far from being a scientific jurist and was criticized for his superficiality and lack of historical sense. The shortcomings of the Commentaries in these respects, however, were offset by its style and intelligibility, and lawyers and laymen alike came to regard it as an authoritative exposition of the law. In the following century, the fame of Blackstone was even greater in the United States than in his native land. After the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the Commentaries became the chief source of knowledge of English law in the New World.
Image of the Declaration of Independence (1776) taken from an engraving made by printer William J. Stone in 1823.
Image of the Declaration of Independence (1776) taken from an engraving made by printer William J. Stone in 1823.
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Reforms since the 19th century
Bentham
Following the social turmoil of the French Revolution (1789) and the economic upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, there were many demands for reforms to modernize the law. The most significant figure in the reform movement was the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who was prepared to reform the whole law along radical lines. A brilliant student, Bentham disliked the picture of the law that he had heard presented in Blackstone’s lectures. In 1769 he entered the bar, but, since he was living on an inheritance, he never found it necessary to enter practice. He worked to make law less technical and more accessible to the people, but he was slow to complete or publish his writings. His basic work, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, did not appear until 1789.
Jeremy Bentham, detail of an oil painting by H.W. Pickersgill, 1829; in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Jeremy Bentham, detail of an oil painting by H.W. Pickersgill, 1829; in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Bentham attacked legal fictions and other historical anomalies. He advocated two basic changes in the legal system: (1) in order to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number, legislators—rather than courts—should make the law; and (2) the aims of law should vary with time and place.
The fame of the Principles spread widely and rapidly. Bentham was made a French citizen in 1792, and his advice was respectfully received in most of the countries of Europe and in the United States. Although he wanted most of all to be allowed to draw up a legal code for his own or some foreign country, his practical influence was far more indirect and derived largely from the diffusion of utilitarian ideas during the 19th century.
Changes in procedure and criminal law
In England the old framework of the separate forms of action in civil cases was replaced in 1852 by a new system of uniform writs of summons, and liberal amendment of pleadings was permitted. Fixed dates were established for trials. In 1933 jury trial was ended in civil cases, except in libel (see defamation) and a few other actions. A series of evidence acts simplified civil proof. Far-reaching reforms of civil procedure were introduced in 2000 as a result of a report by a judge, Lord Woolf, who was appointed lord chief justice to implement the changes called for in his report. These principally consisted in simplifying procedure, but language was also altered, so that plaintiffs became claimants and the use of old, often Latin, terms and phrases was abandoned in favour of plainer English expressions.
A major trend in criminal procedure since the early 19th century has been better protection of the rights of the accused. Since 1836 accused persons have been entitled to counsel (see assigned counsel), and since 1898 they have been allowed to testify on their own behalf. In 1903 provision for the state to pay for defense was made—it has since been expanded—and in 1907 the right of appeal against criminal convictions was created. In 1967 verdicts by a majority of the jury were made possible, and restrictions were imposed on press coverage of preliminary hearings. Further changes to criminal procedure have frequently been discussed, including the restriction of jury trial to certain types of cases. This particular suggestion, however, has proved politically undesirable in most cases—except in Northern Ireland, where criminal cases involving suspected paramilitaries were tried before judges alone from 1973 to 2007.
The 19th century saw the enactment of a series of statutes that codified the part of criminal law dealing with individual crimes, apart from homicide. Basic ideas have changed little, other than the fact that some modern statutes have imposed responsibility without fault and that corporations can now be held responsible for the acts of their management.
The rules of legal insanity were laid down in the 19th century and supplemented in 1957 by the limited defense of “diminished responsibility.” Capital punishment was gradually ended for most felonies and was finally eliminated for murder by the Homicide Acts of 1957–65. In 1968 a new Theft Act, amended in 1978, replaced the old idea of larceny by a broader concept that resembles the Roman delict (offense) of theft. Experimentation has led to new remedies, one of these being the suspended sentence, which has to be served only if a further crime is committed.
Reorganization of the courts
The jurisdiction of the church courts over the laity ended in 1857, when secular divorce and probate courts were set up. These merged into the High Court of Justice in 1875 as a result of the Judicature Acts of 1873–75, which reformed the civil courts. The Judicature Acts were much more than a regrouping and renaming of courts; they attempted to fuse law and equity by making available legal and equitable remedies in all divisions of the High Court and by providing that the equitable rule should prevail when conflicts arose. Common law and equity nevertheless preserved their separate identities, partly because of the different subject matter with which they often dealt and partly because lawyers persisted in maintaining the distinction.
In the late 19th century the three central courts of common law were amalgamated as the Queen’s Bench Division, which to this day continues to try suits for damages. Since 1875 cases have been tried by a single judge (sometimes, before 1933, with a jury), not by a full bench of judges.
After it became a division of the High Court in 1875, the chancery not only dealt with equity suits but also administered the voluminous legislation on property, bankruptcy, succession, copyrights, patents, and taxation. Contested probate cases were transferred to the chancery by the Courts Act of 1971. The Family Division of the High Court, dealing with matrimonial cases and issues relating to children, was created at the same time.
Before the Courts Act, criminal cases were tried two or three times a year at assizes (sessions) of the High Court or four times a year at quarter-sessions of magistrates in the provinces. A system of permanent provincial crown courts has replaced these. Civil assizes were replaced by allowing the High Court to sit at certain cities. Small civil cases, tried at statutory county courts since 1846, are now regulated by an act introduced in 1984.
A remarkable feature of English criminal justice, as compared with most European systems, has been the continuing role of lay magistrates, who remain important despite the appointment of paid, legally trained magistrates, now known as district judges, in London and some of the larger cities. An important aspect of the magistrates’ work has been their jurisdiction over young offenders, for whom special juvenile courts were first set up in 1908. The report of a royal commission on justices of the peace in 1948 strongly defended the position of lay justice against public criticism; its cautious recommendations as to the appointment of justices and as to the organization of their courts were largely put into effect by the Justices of the Peace Act (1949) and the Magistrates’ Courts Act (1980). The Criminal Justice Administration Act (1962) extended the power of justices of the peace to try indictable offenses summarily. A series of later statutes rendered the procedure more flexible, made detailed provision for penalties and their execution, and added a number of new offenses. In 1964 elementary judicial training for lay justices was introduced; this is now regulated by the Judicial Studies Board. In 1994 the local committees that appoint lay magistrates were revised and made more accountable. Magistrates are now provided with immediate and frequently revised guidance and training through online facilities. These developments, since 1948, show both the persistence in English law of ancient institutions and a preference for reforming rather than totally abolishing them.
A modern appellate court for civil cases in the High Court was set up in 1830 but was replaced in 1875 by a Court of Appeal consisting of special appellate judges. In 1907 a Court of Criminal Appeal was established, but it was merged into the Court of Appeal in 1966. A divisional court hears appeals from magistrates on points of law. A final appeal, subject to conditions, can be made to the Supreme Court, which replaced the House of Lords as a court of final resort by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
Public law
In the early part of the 20th century, it could be asserted that there was no public law in England in the sense of a set of rules regulating the administration of public affairs, which differed from those operating in the private sphere. To some this was a source of pride, contrasting with the law in countries with a more highly developed centralized administration. But, in effect, it disguised the degree to which the government in the United Kingdom was unfettered by legal norms. Beginning with the regulation of local government in the first part of the century and marked by famous if ineffective challenges to the powers exercised by the executive during two world wars, a body of public-law remedies was slowly developed to challenge the executive’s freedom to act or at least to call it to account for its actions. Their distinctive features were given greater clarity following the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Economic Community (ultimately succeeded by the European Union [EU]) in 1973. Within the EU a range of remedies, largely modeled on those created by the French administrative courts, serve to hold institutions of both the EU and national authorities to account for acting in excess of the powers granted to them by the constitutive treaties of the Union. By the 1980s it was being said that a new branch of English law had been created, though by the early 21st century it was rather perceived that a process of assimilation of wider European ideas into the English common law was developed (see also European law).
Reform in private law
Since 1965 a permanent Law Commission has been charged with keeping the law under constant review and making proposals for change. Although it has had some notable successes in producing changes to the law regarding corporate manslaughter and in the creation of third-party rights in contract, its activities are often stifled by the unwillingness of the government to find parliamentary time for technical reforms without political content. Thus, neither a proposal to codify the general provisions of criminal law nor reforms to the law regarding nonpecuniary loss in cases of personal injury have been implemented.
Wills are regulated mainly by a statute of 1837 (amended in 1982), and the freedom to disinherit has been curtailed by a series of family provision acts, thereby assimilating the common law to those systems, like that in Scotland, that have always required provision to be made for the family. Title to land is subject to a system of registration that has been gradually introduced under an act of 1925. Intestate succession (i.e., in the absence of a valid will) for all kinds of property was unified in the same year. The law of leases has been modified by social legislation such as the numerous Rent (control) Acts, which protect residential tenants, and by a statutory system of leasehold enfranchisement, which allows holders of land under long leases to purchase the freehold. The terms of trusts can be modified by the chancery (since 1958), and a wider range of trustee investments have been allowed since 1961.
Grounds for divorce were enlarged by a number of 20th-century statutes, leading to the broad “breakdown of marriage” approach of the Divorce Reform Act of 1969. This approach was taken further in the Family Law Act of 1996, which removed the requirement for divorce that one of the parties has committed adultery or some other offense against the other and which stressed the role of mediation in resolving family disputes. Under this legislation a marriage may be terminated expeditiously when the partners are in agreement.
After several piecemeal laws addressed trade unions, a more comprehensive—though controversial—Industrial Relations Act was passed in 1971, requiring registration of unions and arbitration of disputes. Although the system established by this statute fell into political disfavour following several bitter trade disputes in the 1970s, it paved the way for the greater regulation introduced in the 1980s. From the 1990s, a series of comprehensive measures, including the Employment Rights Act (ERA) of 1996, have created a large degree of protection for employees.
In the field of tort, manufacturers’ liability to consumers was established by case law in 1932 and later strengthened by legislation. This liability in negligence has in effect taken over the greater part of tort litigation. Liability in libel has been cut down by many statutes.
Commercial law—with the Bills of Exchange Act (1882), Sale of Goods Act (1893 and 1979), the Unfair Contract Terms Act (1977), and consumer protection statutes in 1965 and 1974—has become primarily the domain of legislation. Arbitration too is regulated by statute.
The Human Rights Act 1998 marked an important change in the orientation of the common law away from a law of duties and toward a law of rights. The act effectively makes the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights a matter of domestic law, enabling the English courts to give relief in cases that otherwise would have to be taken to the European Commission of Human Rights or its court, the European Court of Human Rights. Although the greatest fears of its detractors have not been realized, the act has caused public bodies to adjust their procedures to protect citizens’ rights, since they can be made to pay compensation in cases where they fail to do so. The right to protect life has been held to permit courts to disguise the identity of both witnesses and the accused in extreme cases but, on the other hand, has not been extended to cover a right to take one’s own life so as to limit the liabilities of those who may assist in the suicide. The right to protection of personal freedom has led to the challenging of excessive prison sentences and to the alteration of the previous practice of permitting the home secretary to fix the length of time (the “tariff”) actually served in prison by someone sentenced to a life term. In some cases, courts in the United Kingdom are still reluctant to extend their understanding of human rights protection; litigants who have exhausted their remedies in English courts can still pursue a claim before the European human rights tribunals, as in a case that established the right of transgender persons to marry and required a legislative change to English law (the Gender Recognition Act 2004).
The Development Of Common Law In The United States And Other Jurisdictions
The first English settlers on the Atlantic Seaboard of North America brought with them only elementary notions of law. Colonial charters conferred upon them the traditional legal privileges of English citizens, such as habeas corpus and the right to trial before a jury of one’s peers. However, there were few judges, lawyers, or lawbooks, and English court decisions were slow to reach them. Each colony passed its own statutes, and governors or legislative bodies acted as courts. Civil and criminal cases were tried in the same courts, and lay juries enjoyed wide powers. English laws passed after the date of settlement did not automatically apply in the colonies, and even presettlement legislation was liable to adaptation. English cases were not binding precedents. Several of the American colonies introduced substantial legal codes, such as those of Massachusetts in 1648 and of Pennsylvania in 1682.
By the late 17th century, lawyers were practicing in the colonies, using English lawbooks and following English procedures and forms of action. In 1701 Rhode Island legislated to receive English law in full, subject to local legislation, and the same happened in the Carolinas in 1712 and 1715. Other colonies, in practice, also applied the common law with local variations.
Many legal battles in the period leading up to the American Revolution (1775–83) were fought on common-law principles, and half of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. The Constitution of the United States itself uses traditional English legal terms.
After 1776, anti-British feelings led some Americans to advocate a fresh legal system, but European laws were diverse, couched in foreign languages having unfamiliar turns of thought, and unavailable in textbook form. Blackstone’s Commentaries, reprinted in America in 1771, was widely used, even though new English statutes and decisions were officially ignored.
In the 1830s two great judges, James Kent of New York and Joseph Story of Massachusetts, produced important commentaries on common law and equity, emphasizing the need for legal certainty and for security of title to property. These works followed the common-law tradition, which has been fundamental in the United States except in Louisiana, where French civil law has survived.
Joseph Story, photograph by Mathew Brady
Joseph Story, photograph by Mathew Brady
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The common law was also adopted in other areas settled by the British. In Australia, New Zealand, British Canada, and many colonies in Africa, the common law was applied without any rival. But elsewhere, notably in India, South Africa, and Quebec, allowance had to be made for existing legal systems. In the 19th century there were notable experiments in India with codifying the common law. Until the 20th century there was little independence in the legal systems of the Commonwealth; the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, sitting in London, acted as the supreme court of appeal for all overseas jurisdictions. As a result of political independence, Commonwealth countries subsequently rejected the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, with the consequence that significant differences developed between jurisdictions even in areas of traditional common law.
American innovations
The American states viewed law as a cementing force and used it to facilitate cooperation in the face of the hazards of nature and other difficulties arising in the development of the new continent. Special laws were developed to deal with timber, water, and mineral rights. Simple procedures were followed. Dogma was rejected in favour of personal experience and experiment, and old decisions soon became outdated. The pioneer spirit favoured freedom and initiative and distrusted central authority and a paternal government. Homespun local justice was preferred, as was the common sense of the local jury. For a time, some of the colonies even tried to base their law on the Bible. But, even when English law reasserted itself, many of its institutions were rejected. Upon death intestate, for example, all of the children inherited land and not just, as in England, the eldest son. Freehold title was the rule, not long leases under landlords. Church courts did not exist.
Growth of statute law and codes
After the American Revolution, a drive to replace judge-made law with popular legislation was revived. In 1811 Bentham proposed a national civil code to President James Madison, but his proposal was premature. In the mid-19th century, the legal reformer David Dudley Field presided over the drafting of several codes and campaigned vigorously for the systematic, rational codification of U.S. law. Except for a code of civil procedure, which was widely copied, Field’s codes found little acceptance in state legislatures. Field’s civil code was adopted by five states, including California and New York, but the common-law tradition was so strong in these jurisdictions that the civil code became just another statute. It was read against the background of—and supplemented by—existing case law, rather than being seen as a complete set of authoritative starting points for legal reasoning, as were the Continental civil codes. Louisiana, whose legal system is a hybrid of civil- and common-law elements, is the only American state that has a code in the civil-law sense. Despite the failure of the codification movement, U.S. law became increasingly statutory, so that by the late 20th century legislation predominated over judge-made law.
David Field
David Field
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
U.S. statutes are not construed so narrowly as those in England, and there is less reluctance to change the older law. Statutes are also regularly revised; for example, New York state has had a Law Revision Commission since 1934.
Equity and probate
In 18th-century England the Court of Chancery administered equity, and the church courts handled the probate of wills. In the American colonies, the governor and his council acted as a court of equity. For a time after independence, equity was suspect as a remnant of royal prerogative, but it has come to be generally applied by the same court as the regular law. Although U.S. common law is more flexible than English law, and the need for equity is less, important remedies have nevertheless been developed within the system. Probate, with a few exceptions, is usually a matter for the regular courts.
Federal and state judicial systems
State courts try the large majority of all civil and criminal cases. Local magistrates may sit on county or district courts. One appeal is always given, and two levels of appeals exist in many states. The highest court is usually called the supreme court of the state, but this varies. In New York state, for example, the Supreme Court is a trial court, and the highest court is the Court of Appeals.
The U.S. Constitution established a federal Supreme Court, and the1789 Judiciary Act provided for federal district courts and circuit courts. The plan for inferior courts has undergone changes from time to time, notably in 1891, when circuit courts of appeal were established, and in 1911, when the old circuit courts were abolished.
Most federal law is statutory and enforced by federal courts. Laws concerning taxes, labour, securities, shipping, interstate commerce, antitrust regulations, patents, and copyrights fall into this category. Following the decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Supreme Court became the ultimate authority for determining the conformity of all legislation with the federal Constitution, which guarantees many fundamental rights.
To ensure the fair treatment of out-of-state citizens or of corporations incorporated elsewhere, federal courts can try cases involving a diversity of citizenship. In such cases they act as if they were state courts, however, being bound by state statutes since 1842 and by state interpretations of common law and equity since 1938. Federal procedure is followed, but state rules on vital matters, such as statutes of limitations, are enforced.
Federal courts also try claims by and against the United States, such as cases undertaken to protect federal assets. In the absence of statutory provisions for such cases, a “federal common law” is applied.
Personal and property rights
The guarantees of due process of law given in Magna Carta in 1215 and the British Bill of Rights of 1689 are reflected in the first 10 amendments to the federal Constitution, which were passed in 1791 and are known as the Bill of Rights. Since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the rights of life, liberty, and property have been protected from deprivation by both the states and the federal government without due process of law; this has tended to shield private property from government regulation and private contracts from government interference. (It should be remembered, however, that even after the abolition of slavery following the American Civil War and despite these constitutional safeguards, black men did not have equal rights with white men, and women had far fewer legal rights than men.) The use of property, however, is restricted by zoning laws and health and safety measures, and the acquisition of property for public purposes may be justified under the doctrine of eminent domain (the power of the government to take private property for public use without the owner’s consent upon payment of compensation).
Since the late 1930s, the power of the Congress to regulate the economy under its authority to oversee interstate commerce has generally been upheld by the Supreme Court. State legislation is, as a rule, also held to be constitutional in this area. Minimum-wage laws and the right to collective bargaining in industry are recognized as well.
Since the 1950s, the emphasis in constitutionality cases has shifted to human rights. The requirement of equal protection of the laws and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 led to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional and to later rulings against using public funds for segregated private schools. The Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies not only to official laws and actions but also to the conduct of private citizens. Thus, no discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin is allowed in places of public entertainment or resort or in employment practices by larger firms.
Since 1962 the Supreme Court has insisted on regular reapportionment, the redrawing of electoral districts to give each vote roughly the same value (see Baker v. Carr). It has also interpreted the constitutional prohibition of the establishment of a state religion to render school prayer and religious instruction illegal. In 1971 freedom of the press was held to justify The New York Times newspaper in publishing articles based on the so-called Pentagon Papers, a classified history of U.S. military involvement in Indochina. The right of women to obtain an abortion was recognized by the Supreme Court in 1973 (Roe v. Wade). In subsequent decisions, the Court found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms (District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008); that spending by corporations and unions on independent political advertising is a form of constitutionally protected free speech (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 2010); and that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015).
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