Source: https://laws.ucoz.com/news/english_law_legal_definition_of_english_law/2017-02-10-12686
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 11:05:29+00:00

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The body of English law includes legislation, Common Law. and a host of other legal norms established by Parliament, the Crown, and the judiciary. It is the fountain from which flowed nearly every facet of U.S. law during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Many of the concepts embodied in the U.S. Constitution such as the separation and delegation of powers between three branches of government and the creation of an elective national assembly representing the will of the people trace their roots to English law. Fundamental legal procedures applied in the U.S. civil and criminal justice systems also originated in England. The jury system, for example, slowly matured into its modern form over several hundred years of English history. The antecedents of many substantive areas of U.S. law, including the ubiquitous system of state and federal taxation, may be found in English history as well.
Compurgation was a ritualistic procedure in which accused persons might clear themselves of an alleged wrongdoing by taking a sworn oath denying the claim made against them, and corroborating the denial by the sworn oaths of 12 other persons, usually neighbors or relatives. If an accused person failed to provide the requisite number of compurgators, he or she lost. The number of compurgators was the same as the number of jurors later impaneled to hear criminal cases under the common law. In the United States, the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution required that all criminal trials be prosecuted before 12 jurors until 1970, when the Supreme Court ruled that six-person juries were permissible (Williams v. Florida. 399 U.S. 78, 90 S. Ct. 1893, 26 L. Ed. 2d 446).
Trial by ordeal was a superstitious procedure administered by clerics who subjected accused persons to physical torment in hopes of uncovering divine signs of guilt or innocence. The most common forms of ordeal involved boiling or freezing waters and hot irons. In the ordeal of freezing water, accused persons were thrown into a pool to see if they would sink or float. If they sank, the cleric believed they were innocent, because the water would presumably reject someone with an impure soul. Of course, persons who sank to the bottom and drowned during this ordeal were both exonerated of their alleged misbehavior, and dead.Battle was another form of primitive trial that was thought to involve divine intervention on behalf of the righteous party. The combatants were armed with long staffs and leather shields, and fought savagely until one party cried, Craven, or died.
Trial by battle, though in many ways as barbaric as trial by ordeal, foreshadowed modern trials in several ways. The combatants fought in an adversarial arena before robed judges who presided over the battle. The accused person was required to put on a defense, quite literally in the physical sense, against an opponent who was trying to prove the veracity of his or her claims. Some parties to a battle, particularly women, children, and older individuals, were entitled to hire stronger, more able champions to fight on their behalf. This last practice sheds light on the more recent phrase hired guns. which is sometimes used to describe U.S. trial attorneys.
Dr. Bonham's Case. 8 Co. Rep. 114 (Court of Common Pleas ), stands for the principle that legislation passed by the English Parliament is sub-ordinate to the common-law decisions made by trial and appellate court judges, and any statute that is contrary to common right and reason must be declared void (Thorne 1938).
Bonham was examined by the college censors in a number of areas regarding his professional practice, and provided answers less aptly and insufficiently in the art of physic (Stoner 1992, 49). As a result, Bonham was determined unfit to practice medicine in this field, and was ordered to desist from such practice in London. When Bonham was later discovered flouting this order, he was arrested and placed in the custody of the censors.
Coke placed the judiciary in the middle of what was becoming a titanic struggle for power between Parliament and the ruler of England. Until the seventeenth century, the English monarchy enjoyed nearly absolute power over all political and legal matters that concerned the country as a whole. Despite the growing popularity and importance of Parliament during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the monarchy's autocratic power, which King James I (1603 25) asserted was divine in origin, included the prerogative to enact laws without parliamentary consent.
By the close of the seventeenth century, however, the pendulum of power had swung in favor of Parliament. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 subordinated the power of the English Crown and judiciary to parliamentary sovereignty. In 1765, English jurist Sir William Blackstone described the power of Parliament to make laws in England as absolute, despotic, and without control.
The American Revolution, which began eleven years after Blackstone's pronouncement of Parliament's unfettered power, was commenced in response to the coercive legislation passed in the colonies by what had become a despotic Parliament. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison. and their contemporaries believed that a legislative despot was no better than a monarchical despot. In 1787, the U.S. Constitution established the judiciary as a check on the legislative and executive branches of government, a check that was foreshadowed by Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case.
James I was cognizant of the dangers Bonham's Case presented to his claims of divine royal prerogative. The king understood that the common law, which Bonham's Case said controlled acts of Parliament, was really just a decision made by a court of law, or, more particularly, by a judge or panel of judges. James also understood that if the judiciary were allowed to assert the power to review acts of Parliament, it was only a short step away from passing judgment on actions taken by the Crown.
Much to the Crown's chagrin, Coke's replacement on the Court of Common Pleas, Sir Henry Hobart, expanded the concept of judicial review intimated by Bonham's Case. In Day v. Savadge. Hob. 84 (K.B. 1614), Hobart declared that an act of parliament made against natural Equity. as to make a man judge in his own cause, is void in itself (as quoted in American General Insurance Co. v. FTC. 589 F.2d 462 [9th Cir. 1979]). Where did the new chief justice derive the court's power to invalidate the laws of Parliament? Hobart said, [B]y that liberty and authority that judges have over laws, especially statute laws, according to reason and best convenience, to mould them to the truest and best use (Sheffield v. Ratcliff. Hob. (K.B. 1615), as quoted in Plucknett 1926, 50).
Exasperated by such further attempts to limit his prerogative, James I dismissed Coke from the King's Bench, and ordered him to correct his decision in Bonham's Case. which had subsequently been published in England's case law reporter known as The Reports. Coke refused to accede to the king's demands.
The American colonists were intimately familiar with the writings of Lord Coke. Coke's Reports first came to America on the Mayflower. and the Massachusetts General Court ordered two complete sets from England in 1647. Coke's opinion in Bonham's Case was among his most popular writings.
In Paxton's Case of the Writ of Assistance. Quincy 51 (Mass. 1761), colonist James Otis challenged Massachusetts's authority to issue writs of assistance, general search warrants that empowered local sheriffs to enter private homes and businesses to seize smuggled goods. Otis told the colonial court that he objected to such writs, which were created by a parliamentary act in 1662, because they violated the principle of Bonham's Case: As to acts of parliament, an act against the Constitution is void. An act against natural equity is void; and if an act of parliament should be made in the very words of this petition, it would be void. The Executive Courts must pass such acts into disuse.
John Adams. who was in the Boston courtroom where Otis made his argument for the colonial application of Bonham's Case. later exclaimed, Then and there the child Independence was born. Adams might also have exclaimed that the seeds of judicial review had been planted in the American colonies by Otis, who was unequivocally assigning to Executive Courts the responsibility of invalidating parliamentary legislation that violated constitutional precepts.
Four years later, the colonies again relied on the principle of Bonham's Case. this time in their opposition to the Stamp Act. a parliamentary statute that taxed everything from newspapers to playing cards. Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, encouraged the friends of liberty and opponents of the Stamp Act to take advantage of the Maxim they find in Lord Coke that an act of parliament against Magna Carta or the peculiar rights of Englishmen is ipso facto void .
In 1786, the Superior Court of Rhode Island relied on Bonham's Case to strike down a statute that denied the right to trial by jury for certain crimes, because Lord Coke held that such statutes were repugnant and impossible (Trevett v. Weeden [Newport Super. Ct. Judicature], as quoted in Plucknett 1926, 66).
The U.S. acceptance of the legal principles enunciated in Bonham's Case culminated in 1803 when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Marbury. which established the power of judicial review by authorizing federal judges to invalidate unconstitutional laws enacted by the coordinate branches of government. Nowhere in Marbury does the Supreme Court cite Bonham's Case or expressly quote Lord Coke. But the influence of both Coke and his opinion cannot be missed.
Chief Justice John Marshall. writing for a unanimous Court, began his opinion in Marbury with two premises: the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it, and an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void. Congress cannot be entrusted to determine the constitutionality of legislation passed by the House and Senate, Marshall implied, for the same reason the London College censors could not be allowed to judge their own cause.
To what purpose are the powers [of Congress] limited by the federal Constitution, Marshall asked, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? In a passage that harkens back to Chief Justice Hobart's opinion in Sheffield v. Ratcliff. Marshall concluded that only the judicial branch of government can be entrusted with such an overreaching power: It is emphatically the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret the rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the court must decide on the operation of each.
Although Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Marbury extended to the United States the principles of judicial review first intimated in Bonham's Case. judges, lawyers, and laypersons still debate the legitimacy of allowing unelected (appointed) judges to invalidate legislation enacted by representative institutions in a democratic country.
Edwards, R.A. 1996. Bonham's Case: The Ghost in the Constitutional Machine. Denning Law Journal (annual): 63 90.
William the Conqueror understood the importance of revenue, and that is where he began building the English empire. In 1086, William initiated the Domesday Survey, which sought to determine the amount and value of property held in England, for the purpose of assessing taxes against the owners. The Domesday Survey was conducted by eight panels of royal commissioners who traveled to every county in the country, where they collected information through sworn inquests. Although the survey began as a method of recording real property held in the kingdom, one contemporary Saxon chronicler moaned that there was not a single hide nor ox, cow or swine omitted (Trevelyan 1982). The Court of Exchequer served as auditor, accountant, and tax collector for William, and provided a venue to settle disputes between the Crown and taxpayers, becoming the earliest department of state .
henry ii (1154 89) further strengthened the central government by enlarging the power and jurisdiction of the royal system of justice. During his reign, any crime that breached the ruler's peace was tried before a royal court sitting in Westminster, or by royal itinerant justices who traveled to localities throughout England to hear disputes. Heretofore, the royal court heard only cases that directly threatened the monarch's physical or economic interests. Most other complaints, except for those heard by the Catholic Church, were leveled by private individuals, who were also responsible for proving their accusations. By increasing the sphere of what the government considered public wrongs, Henry II laid the groundwork for the modern U.S. criminal justice system, where attorneys for the federal, state, and local governments are invested with the authority to prosecute persons accused of criminal wrongdoing.Henry II also laid the groundwork for the common-law method of deciding cases, whereby judges make decisions in accordance with other decisions they have rendered in similar matters. The royal system of justice was governed by a single set of legal rules and principles, which was applied evenhandedly to litigants presenting claims to the monarch's justices. This system superseded one that applied the often inconsistent customary laws of neighboring communities of different ethnic backgrounds. Because the monarch's law was applied in a uniform manner, it became common to every shire in the land. This common-law system of adjudication was adopted by the American colonies and continues to be applied in nearly all of the 50 states of the Union.
Henry II also made the law more impersonal and less vindictive. In 1166, the Assize of Clarendon prohibited the prosecution of anyone who had not first been accused by a presenting jury of 12 to 16 men from the community in which the crime occurred. The presenting jury fore-shadowed the modern Grand Jury as an accusatory body that identified persons for prosecution but made no determination as to guilt or innocence. The presenting jury was seen as a more neutral and detached alternative to the system it replaced, which required the alleged victims, some of whom were waging a personal vendetta against the accused person, to identify alleged criminals for prosecution.
The tyranny of King John (1199 1216) alienated the church and the barons, converting them into adversaries of the Crown. John was excommunicated by the pope, church services and sacraments were suspended in England, and the barons renounced homage to the Crown. Spearheaded by Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, the barons confronted King John on the battlefield at Runnymede, where they won recognition for certain fundamental liberties contained in the 63 clauses that make up the Magna Charta.
Most important the Magna Charta prohibited any free man from being imprisoned, or disseised, or exiled, except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land (ch. 39). The phrase law of the land was later equated with due process in the American colonies and received constitutional recognition in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has described due process as the most comprehensive of liberties guaranteed in the Constitution ( rochin v. california, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S. Ct. 205, 96 L. Ed. 183 ), and has relied on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to make most of the freedoms contained in the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.
It was not long, however, before the Commons realized that its approval carried a measure of authority. In 1309, the Commons granted a subsidy to King Edward II (1307 27) on condition that he redress its grievances. During the reign of Edward III (1327 77), Parliament asserted three claims that would be echoed with minor variation in the American colonies: taxes assessed without approval from both houses of Parliament were void, legislation passed by only one house of Parliament lacked legal effect, and the Commons reserved the right to investigate and remedy any abuses by the royal administration. A century later, during the reign of Henry VIII (1509 47), the Commons asserted the power of the purse, arguing that all money bills must originate in its house.
These claims, although fairly innocuous when originally asserted by the Commons, were interpreted by subsequent Parliaments to mean that no one could rule without the consent of Parliament, and royal officials who abused their power, including the ruler, could be impeached and removed from office. When the English civil war known as the War of the Roses (1455 85) substantially depleted the ranks of the barons, the voice of the Commons grew louder as the representatives of the commoners were left to fend almost for themselves against a monarchical power that, culminating in the reign of James I (1603 25), claimed to be divine in origin and absolute in nature.
The struggles between Parliament and the crown for authority over England in the seventeenth century were a prelude to the struggles between Parliament and the colonists for control over the American colonies in the eighteenth century. The monarchy maintained that its power to govern England derived directly from God and thus overrode any earthly power, including that of Parliament and common law. Parliament, on the other hand, maintained that the people, under God, were the source of all just power, and that Parliament represented the people.
Whereas it is notorious, That Charles Stuart, the now king of England, not content with those many encroachments which his predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and freedoms, hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government; and that besides all other evil ways and means to bring this design to pass, he hath prosecuted with fire and sword, levied and maintained a cruel war in the land against the parliament and kingdom, whereby the country hath been miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other mischiefs committed. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the president of the High Court of Justice instructed the king, in language that resonates through the U.S. Constitution, [T]he Law is your Superior, and the only thing superior to the law is the Parent or Author of Law, [which] is the people of England.
In 1689, Parliament achieved victory in its constitutional struggle with the monarchy when William and Mary (1689 1702) agreed to govern England as king and queen subject to a bill of rights. This English Bill of Rights, a forerunner to the U.S. Bill of Rights, which was submitted to Congress exactly one hundred years later, declares that the monarchy's pretended power of suspending of laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal. It also guarantees the right of each English subject to petition the king for redress of grievances, and acknowledges Parliament's role in amending, strengthening, and preserving the laws of the country.
Although the English Bill of Rights ended England's seventeenth-century constitutional struggle between Parliament and the monarchy, America's eighteenth-century constitutional struggle with these two branches of government had not yet begun. By 1765, the pendulum of power had swung fully toward Parliament, prompting eminent English jurist Sir William Blackstone to write that [s]o long as the English constitution lasts the power of Parliament is absolute, despotic, and without control. Because England had no written constitution that constrained the legislative power of Parliament, every act of Parliament was in a sense part of the [English] constitution, and all law was thus constitutional.
The American colonists soon discovered that a legislative despot was just as tyrannical as a monarchical despot. The U.S. Constitution put an end to the notion of absolute power resting with any one sovereign, by separating the powers of government into three branches executive, legislative, and judicial and carefully delegating the powers of each. Although these safeguards against government-run-amok were the product of the violent American Revolution, they allowed for the tranquil and uneventful Integration of many ordinary English legal principles into the U.S. system of justice, including early Bankruptcy and Welfare laws during the nineteenth century.
Christenson, Ron. 1991. Political Trials in History: From Antiquity to the Present. New Brunswick, N.J. Transaction.
. 1986. Political Trials: Gordian Knots in the Law. New Brunswick, N.J. Transaction.
Landsman, Stephen. 1983. A Brief Survey of the Development of the Adversary System. Ohio State Law Journal 44.Levy, Leonard. 1986. Origins of the Fifth Amendment New York: Macmillan.
. 1926. Bonham's Case and Judicial Review. Harvard Law Review 40.
Smith, George P. II. 1966. Dr. Bonham's Case and the Modern Significance of Lord Coke's Influence. Washington Law Review 41.
Stoner, James R. Jr. 1992. Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism. Univ. Press of Kansas.
Thorne, Samuel. 1938. Dr. Bonham's Case. Law Quarterly Review 54.
Wormald, Patrick. 1999. The Making of English Law. Malden, Mass. Blackwell.

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