India and Latin America by Volkmar Gessner Contact Announcements List of Links FAQ's Site Map Classes Research Main Page ORGS's Legal colonization by definition suffers from the absence of democratic participation of the colonized population and destroys autochthonous legal traditions. In these areas independent India now tries to modernize. The native population was defined as inmature with legal status as minors. Again unlike English approaches in India, legal colonization did not limit itself to the creation of institutions but led from the very beginning to ambitious legislation. Roman law leaves little room for consideration of the specific circumstances of the case.
Precedents have no binding force.
They expressed their obediance but refused to apply the rules which did not fit into local circumstances. An attempt to reorganize the material by the Recopilacion de las Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias in 1680 failed. All universities were staffed by Spanish jurists. There is little autochthonous legal development, constitutions and most legislative acts are copied from Spain or other continental legal systems. Legal science remains underdeveloped in Latin America.