Legal system

“ Our common law system consists in applying to new combinations of circumstances those rules of law which we derive from legal principles and judicial precedents, and for the sake of attaining uniformity, consistency and certainty, we must apply those rules when they are not plainly unreasonable and inconvenient to all cases which arise ”

“ Legal or equitable rights, acquired under either system of laws, may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine such kind of rights and not restrained by its constitution in the exercise of such jurisdiction. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ Conceding, or better realizing, this inherently fluctuating character or quality of public policy, we see that the enactment of statutes to declare or define it must of necessity be a dangerous business, because such statutes, however accurately they reflect the public policy of the moment of their enactment, must almost immediately begin to be wrong. The Common Law, reposing, according to the legal fiction, in the bosom of the court, is flexible, and can change or be changed, as we have seen, with the change of condition ”

“ But if we take the view of our friend the bad man we shall find that he does not care two straws for the axioms or deductions, but that he does want to know what the Massachusetts or English courts are likely to do in fact. I am much of his mind. The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.
Take again a notion which as popularly understood is the widest conception which the law contains;—the notion of legal duty, to which already I have referred. We fill the word with all the content which we draw from morals. ”

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ All systems do to some extent, and those which recognise precedent as a chief source of law do more especially, show a tendency to carry this process of development too far. Under the influence of the spirit of authority the growth of law goes on unchecked by any effective control, and in course of time the domain of legal principle comes to include much that would be better left to the arbitrium of courts of justice. ”

“ IT is one of the popular fallacies of the present day that the responsibility for the state of the law rests entirely with the legislative branch of the government. In reality, this responsibility is in every country shared to a great extent by the legal profession, and the slow development of the law, which results from the writings of jurists, the judgments of courts, and the customary practice of lawyers, is, perhaps, more irresistible, because less noticed, than the violent changes produced by direct legislation. ”

“ Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist must search for its legal solution, in those principles of action which are sanctioned by the usages, the national acts, and the general assent, of that portion of the world of which he considers himself as a part, and to whose law the appeal is made. ”

“ Rules, that is, definite, detailed provisions for definite, detailed states of fact, are the main reliance of the beginnings of law. In the maturity of law they are employed chiefly in situations where there is exceptional need of certainty in order to uphold the economic order. With the advent of legal writing and juristic theory in the transition from the strict law to equity and natural law, a second [Pg 116] element develops and becomes a controlling factor in the administration of justice. ”

“ Legal tribunals have also powerfully assisted to shape and modify conceptions of proprietary right by means of the distinction between Law and Equity, which always makes its first appearance as a distinction between jurisdictions. ”

“ The Constitution of the United States, in creating and defining the judicial power of the General Government, establishes this distinction between law and equity, and a party who claims a legal title must proceed at law, and may undoubtedly proceed according to the forms of practice in such cases in the State court. ”

“ Although a federal equity court does have jurisdiction of a particular proceeding, it may, in its sound discretion, whether its jurisdiction is invoked on the ground of diversity of citizenship or otherwise, 'refuse to enforce or protect legal rights, the exercise of which may be prejudicial to the public interest' ”

“ Courts of record and of general jurisdiction, are vested with exclusive power to regulate the conduct of their own officers, and in this respect their decisions are put on the same footing with that numerous class of cases, which is wisely confided to the legal discretion and judgment of the court, having jurisdiction over the subject-matter. ”

“ How far if at all the needful changes can or ought to be carried out by judicial decisions of the development of legal theory, and how far the intervention of the legislator will be called for, is a matter that will vary from one legal territory to another according to the accepted traditions as the binding force of precedents, the character of the enacted law, and the wider of narrower liberty of judicial interpretation. ”

“ They exhibit a striking specimen of the involutions which ingenuity may cast about legal rights, and an instance of the growing pretensions of some of the State Courts over the exercise of the powers of the general government. ”

“ The agents of legal change, Fictions, Equity, and Legislation, are brought in turn to bear on the primeval institutions, and at every point of the progress, a greater number of personal rights and a larger amount of property are removed from the domestic forum to the cognizance of the public tribunals. ”

“ In short, this is an area 'of judicial decision within which the policy of the law is so dominated by the sweep of federal statutes that legal relations which they affect must be deemed governed by federal law having its source in those statutes, rather than by local law.' Sola Electric Co. ”

“ But usually the real significance and legal consequence of each term will depend upon its context and the nature of the interests it is invoked to distinguish.
Statutes may be called public because the rights conferred are of general application, while laws known as private affect few or selected individuals or localities. ”

“ By the well-established rules of construing statutes, 'if divers statutes relate to the same thing, they ought all to be taken into consideration in construing any one of them.' Where there are different statutes in pari materia, though made at different times, or even expired, and not referring to each other, they shall be taken and construed together as one system, and as explanatory of each other. ”

“ The Constitution guarantees the principle of legality, the hierarchy of legal provisions, the publicity of legal statutes, the non-retroactivity of punitive provisions that are not favourable to or restrictive of individual rights, the certainty that the rule of law shall prevail, the accountability of public authorities, and the prohibition of arbitrary action of public authorities. ”

“ It is a singular question, whether a system of jurisprudence exists in a state where it is not known or understood. Whether, in a community where the civil law prevails, a system of laws shall be introduced which are against their prejudices. ”

“ By your laws denouncing certain acts as criminal offences, laws which the good of society requires you to pass, and to adapt to our peculiar condition, you do construct and create a system of rules, to be administered by the judiciary. ”

“ With as full respect for the authority of former decisions, as belongs, from teaching and habit, to judges trained in the common-law system of jurisprudence, we think that there may be questions touching the powers of legislative bodies, which can never be finally closed by the decisions of a court, and that the one we have here considered is of this character. ”

“ Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. ”

“ That court best serves the law which recognizes that the rules of law which grew up in a remote generation may, in the fullness of experience, be found to serve another generation badly, and which discards the old rule when it finds that another rule of law represents what should be according to the established and settled judgment of society, and no considerable property rights have become vested in reliance upon the old rule. ”

“ Among these he mentions a law which punishes a citizen for an innocent action; a law that destroys or impairs the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man a judge in his own cause; and a law that takes the property from A. and gives it to B. 'It is against all reason and right,' says the learned justice, 'for a people to intrust a legislature with such powers ”

“ Wherever an act undertakes to determine a question of right or obligation, or of property, as the foundation upon which it proceeds, such act is to that extent a judicial one, and not the proper exercise of legislative functions. ”

“ There is no such difference except in the case of what is properly called “judicial legislation”—wherein an absolutely new rule is added for the first time to the law. The recognition of a custom or law is not necessarily the beginning of the custom or law. Where a custom possesses the marks by which its legality is determined according to well understood principles, the courts pronounce it to have been law at the time of the happening of the facts as to which their jurisdiction is invoked. ”

“ And why are judicial precedents, when formed on due discussion and consideration, and deliberately sanctioned by reviews and repetitions, regarded as of binding influence, or rather of authoritative force, in settling the meaning of a law? It must be answered, 1. Because it is a reasonable and established axiom, that the good of society requires that the rules of conduct of its members should be certain and known; which would not be the case if any judge disregarding the decisions of his predecessors, should vary the rule of law according to his individual interpretation of it. ”

“ There is his own book, a compilation of their laws, which has in it not only good and excellent positive rules, but a system of as enlightened jurisprudence, with regard to the body and substance of it, as perhaps any nation ever possessed,—a system which must have been composed by men of highly cultivated understandings. ”

“ It is my deliberate opinion that these causes, in the form in which they are presented to our consideration, fall within no one of the categories, either in the constitution or the laws of the United States, by which the jurisdiction of this court or that of the circuit courts, have been conferred or prescribed. ”

“ A judicial system was to be prepared, not for a consolidated people, but for distinct societies, already possessing distinct systems, and accustomed to laws, which, though originating in the same great principles, had been variously modified. ”

“ In the English courts, when it is made to appear that property of the government ought, in justice, to contribute to a general average, or to salvage, it seems to be the usual course of proceeding for the proper officer of the government to consent in court that it may take jurisdiction of the matter. ”

“ The judicial power extends to all cases in law and equity arising under the constitution, but these are cases actually, and not potentially, arising, and jurisdiction cannot be assumed on mere hypothesis. ”

“ The whole future will of each individual is concentrated into the one moment when he declares his willingness to participate in the commonwealth; and this extending the present will so as to embrace the whole future, changes the expressed common will into LAW. In so far as the common will determines how far the rights of each person shall extend, the law is called Civil Law; and in so far as it determines the punishment which shall follow a violation of the law, it is called Penal or Criminal Law. ”

“ As we have said on more than one occasion, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to give to the terms 'due process of law' a definition which will embrace every permissible exertion of power affecting private rights, and exclude such as are forbidden. ”

“ That wherever there exists at law a complete and adequate power, either for the prosecution of a right or the redressing of a wrong, courts of equity, with the exception of a few cases of concurrent authority, have no jurisdiction or power to act. ”

“ Surely it may be assumed as a postulate, that a court of justice, in adjudicating upon the rights of the citizen or of the State, should do, and can have power to do, nothing which is irregular, or vain, or useless. ”