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Les fondements du droit Prof. René Provost
Mon numéro de groupe : 7
09/10/2013
Semaine d’introduction
Qu’est-ce qui distingue un argument juridique d’un autre fondé sur la morale ou l’éthique?
Le style juridique est-il vraiment distinct du style littéraire, politique, éthique?
o Utilisation du précédent et des lois, ce qui n’a aucune valeur hors le monde juridique
o Tous prennent en compte le « bien public »
Les sources du droit appartiennent-elles à un registre entièrement à part?
o Registre personnel tout de même pris en compte dans le style juridique
Un argument qui est persuasif du point de vue non-juridique aura-t-il la même qualité dans le cadre d’un
argument juridique?
o Ça dépend
Re: Wishart Estate
Facts:
o Wishart directed in his will that his four horses be executed after his death.
o This was met with strong public protest.
o Executors of will brought application to court to receive its opinion, advice and direction as to
this particular part of the will.
Issue: Should the 4 horses be killed?
Decision: No
Reasoning:
o Wishart treated his horses as pets and wished the best for them
o ∆ true intention was well-being of horses to be preserved and worry they would not be well
taken care of after his death
o Anyway, cannot perform intention of testator where it is contrary to public policy
Brod: Post-scriptum de la première edition du process
Nihilisme de Kafka par rapport à son travail, malgré le grand bonheur qu’il pouvait en tirer
Pas de testament mais dans son beau, un billet écrit à l’encre et plié, adressé à Brod indiquant que Kafka
voulait que tout ce qu’il laisse derrière lui soit brulé après son décès, sans être lu (sauf quelques titres
énumérés qui pourront être gardés sans être réimprimés)
Brod ne le fera pas pour les raisons suivantes :
o Kafka avait déjà, de son vivant, fait cette demande à Brod, qui avait dit qu’il ne respecterait pas
une telle demande (Kafka savait donc le résultat d’une telle demande et aurait du choisi un autre
exécuter testamentaire si ses désirs étaient véritablement irrévocables)
o Kafka lui-même permit la publication posthume de certaines de ces œuvres dans un journal
o Son problème par rapport à ses travaux était en partie de la limitation sur ses œuvres futures à
cause de ses œuvres passées. Ceci n’est plus un problème maintenant qu’il est mort; l’autre partie
du problème était que ses œuvres évoquaient chez Kafka une certaine tristesse, ce qui aussi n’est
plus un problème
o Valeur des œuvres de Kafka
o Le Procès par sa nature devait être inachevé – il était inachevable – donc ceci n’empêchait pas sa
publication
Kafka: Au sujet des lois
Modèle distopique
Lois inconnues de la populace
Appuient le pouvoir de l’aristocratie
o Interprétation nécessite la connaissance des lois
Peu de place à l’interprétation – lois sont vielles, et donc immuable
o Lois comme tradition (et tradition = nombre et immuable pour Kafka)
Noblesse donne le meilleur exemple
Idéal futur : loi appartiendra au public
o PS : Kafka utilise toujours loi avec un L majuscule!
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19/09/2013
Conceptualiser la normativité juridique (en définir les extrêmes)
Katharine T. Bartlett, ‘Only Girls Wear Barrettes: Dress and Appearance Standards, Community Norms,
and Workplace Equality’ (1994)
Feminist critique of dress and appearance
o Impedes women from making own choices and expressing true id
o Subordinate women to men
Demands = more complex
Standards = harder to attain
Objectify women
Construct w as less competent than men
Social inequities codified into dress requirements
o May be just as bad to have to dress as men that to have to dress as women
o Contradiction in feminist position
Goal of liberation agency
Women as victims of social norms outside their control partly negates possibility for
women’s autonomy
Contingency is inevitable but agency is still possible, although it is itself socially
constructed
Rooting out "sexist” workplaces rules and practices based on well-settled community norms is difficult - bc
they are based on social norms, suppressing dress and appearance requirements may not solve the
problems they carry
Will only eliminate one type of constraint without really restoring autonomy of self-prod
of individual
Expectations persist even in absence of mandatory codes
o Advertising
o Patriarchal culture
Available constructed norms don’t leave much room for women’s expressions of self
(and individuals benefit from trying to fit within constructed norms)
Control takes place at hiring stage
Women have more dress options but more possibilities for mistakes and narrower range
of error than men
Clear dress expectations advantage women and unclear dress expectations
disadvantage women
Courts tend to rationalize dress & appearance requirements by ref to community norms
o Reqs may be excused if
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Deemed trivial in their impact on employees
Neutral in affecting men and women alike
Essential to employer’s lawful business objectives
Employer too has appearance interest (to express itself in terms of learned
associations cognitive categorizations of the day)
o e.g. of colors
o Generates awareness of roles encourages professionalism
o Legitimation of functions
o Cues for recognition by customers
o Level out group-based differences
Lon L. Fuller, ‘Human Interaction and the Law’ (1969)
On ne peut pas comprendre le discours juridique en se limitant à ses émanations formelles
o Pont entre société que décrit Kafka et la nôtre
o Normes
Law understood in broadest sense: all legal systems (of states, nations, and those smaller systems that are
law-like in structure and function)
Customary law / Contract law / Enacted law (statutory and common law)
o Customary law
Neglected as primitive
Argues that we cannot understand enacted/official law unless we understand
customary law
i.e. how it comes into being, how it works
Language of interaction
Communicative function of customary law
Providing expectations for social interaction
o Intersecting expectations: considerable convergence in expectations
Code of conduct with both negative and positive prescriptions
Can provide support for enacted law
Grey zones around norms this is where enacted law should live
o Contract law
Comparative to customary law in that it is the parties themselves that bring it into
existence by their agreement and respect
Differences (not clear-cut):
o Interactional expectancies created by words in contracts and actions for
customary law
o Between a limited number of parties (contracts) and extending to larger
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population (custom)
o Enacted law
Also serves to regulate interactions
Not just prescriptive but originates in attempt to facilitate interactions between people as
well as possible between those involved
Exception is w crimes without victims
Also most corrupt and problematic area of enacted law
Maybe bc harder to justify in terms of customary law?
Characterized by its generality and ALSO reciprocity of respect on part of lawgiver and
subject both
o Different types of law are best suited to different social contexts
Comparison between family, amiable strangers and countries at odds with each other
Spectrum from intimacy to hostility
Customary law applies across the board albeit differently
Enacted law and contracts best for amiable strangers
Easier negotiation
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26/09/2013
Droit et littérature
Hay : Property, Authority and the Criminal Law
Droit est un système qui permet de contrôler la société par l’entremise d’un spectacle
En rattachant à l’autre texte : permet d’éviter l’utilisation de la force physique avec les autres marins – créé
un effet de peur parmi eux tel qu’ils éviteront la mutinerie
Justice must not just be done but must be seen as being done
o D’après Hay : la justice n’est que partiellement publique et sa partie publique est un mécanisme
par lequel on transmet l’autorité de la loi
o Aspect rituel de la loi
o Law is chief ideological (power-yielding) instrument of ruling class (comme dans texte de Kafka)
System of criminal law based on terror
Deification of property, value measured in human life (wealth = blood and property)
o e.g. of linen laws – law linked to economy, trade and wealth
o Law enforced the division of property by terror
Mercy also political tool – plays into the spectacle of terror
Unbending opposition of Parliament to repeal capital statutes which were seldom used and weren’t the best
way to protect property – Why?
o Criminal law much more concerned with authority than with property
Criminal law as an ideological system – three aspects of ideology:
o Majesty: theatrics of law, importance of spectacle
Imagery, eloquent speech, power of death, antics surrounding twice-yearly visits of high-
court judges considerable psychic force
Summoning basic ideas of right and wrong (“elaborate ritual of the irrational“ [p. 27])
Three elements
Paternalism (e.g: in addressing jury)
Rhetorical strength: platform to address the multitude
Echo of religion: Echoing some of the psychic components of religion
o God’s command
o Justice
Rule of law
Justice to all – idea of equality (though in fact, false equality)
As number of capital statues increased, interpretation became narrower (cases dismissed
for minor imperfections although prosecution made an excellent case)
Arg was that crim law must be known and determinate to be effective
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When ruling class acquitted men on technicalities, helped instil a belief in
disembodied justice of the law in the minds of all who watched
o Mercy
Mercy and esp King’s pardon epitomized the discretionary element of the law Mercy
used to justify social order
Character witnesses = very important
Pardons were very common
One of the reasons given for mercy was to propitiate popular feelings of justice
Social significance:
Pardon allowed bench to recognize poverty as an excuse although law itself did
not
But in fact:
o Importance given to respectability (class favouritism)
o Chain of power (games of influence)
o Ideology of mercy:
Poor didn’t see elaborate ramifications of interest and
connection (i.e. the corruption of their legal system)
Pardon places principal instrument of legal terror, the gallows, in hands of those in power
Mercy as a tool of strength assertion
Deference: calculated blend of terror and mercy
o Discretion: the decisions that moved the levers of fear and mercy were decisions of propertied
men, and they made them privately, among themselves (opacity)
o Private manipulation of the law by the rich and powerful
If the law was used as an ideology, how do we know that it worked?
o Difference of London
Discretionary use of the law of wealthy and powerful maintained their rule
La pendaison de Billy Budd
SETTING (TIME) · Summer of 1797, four years into the Napoleonic Wars between England and France and
several months after the Great Mutiny at Nore
SETTING (PLACE) · On an English warship, the Bellipotent, somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea
MAJOR CONFLICT · On one level, the conflict of the book is between the natural innocence and goodness of
Billy and the subtlety and deceptiveness of evil, represented by Claggart. The second major conflict of the book is
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the dilemma about whether Vere should absolve Billy for killing Claggart, since Billy is fundamentally
innocent, or whether he should execute him to avoid appearing lenient toward mutiny.
RISING ACTION · Billy’s persecution for minor infractions, his spilling the soup in front of Claggart, and his
encounter with the afterguardsman, who may have been seeking to entrap him, all bring Billy and Claggart toward
open conflict.
CLIMAX · Billy strikes Claggart dead after being falsely accused of mutiny.
FALLING ACTION · Vere forms a special drumhead court to try Billy, and pressures the court to convict and
condemn him; Billy is executed in front of the entire crew; Billy’s legend gradually begins to spread among the
sailors.
THEMES · The individual versus society; conscience versus law; the vulnerability of innocence
Meurtre peine capitale
Articles of War : Un « Acte violent contre un supérieur causant la mort» sera punit par la peine de mort »
Maintien hiérarchie afin de prévenir la mutinerie
Powerlessness of Vere in sentencing
o Law as God’s will
Religiousness of text
Abraham and Isaac (p92)
“Struck dead by an angel of God yet the angel must hand.”
o Budd = essence of good
o Claggart essence of evil
o Good supresses evil (Budd kills Claggart)
o Law above good and evil, somewhat insensitive here to the goodness of
Budd and his action
o p. 93
o Lamb of God p 103
Captain Vere’s affliction as that of the judges Hay describes (p 92)
Drum-head court convened
o Vere’s selection of members for Drum-head court not quite following general custom
o Intention not taken as important – only result of Budd’s blow
o Natural law vs positive law (p 86)
o Discretion/opaqueness Hay talked about : closed-door decision, two-sidedness of Captain Vere
o Rhetorical stregnth of Vere’s speach p 93
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Ce dont on pourrait tenir compte
1) Intention
Dans ce cas c’est presqu’un geste automatique, sans intention de tuer
o Réaction animale p 72
Budd’s testimony : no intention to kill the man, no malicious intent
2) Antécédents
Façon dont commence le roman : élégie du beau marin
Permet de déceler l’état d’esprit du personnage : innocence de l’être au sens de pur
3) Impact de la décision
Prévention? Risque de récidive?
Dissuasion : pour le reste des marins (décourager la mutinerie)
4) Capacité
5) Motifs
Mais quand on applique la loi on ne s’intéresse pas aux motifs
En droit pénal, motifs n’influencent pas détermination de la culpabilité mais pourrait affecter la
sévérité de la peine reçue (p 88)
6) Compassion : accompagne l’application de la loi mais ne vient pas influencer la manière dont la loi est
appliquée
Paternalisme :
Vere rassaurant Budd p 73
Custom : Preparing Claggart’s body, selection of members of Council, tacit rules p94
Actual hanging: a spectacle itself, with the « God bless Captain Vere » and the eeriness of it all
o Superstition of seamen 106
Fear as a vector of power
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03/10/2013
Vers un droit civil québécois
Jean-Louis Gazzaniga, Introduction historique au droit des obligations, Paris, PUF, 1992, aux pp. 35-62
o Évolution lente du droit – pas de ruptures brusques – même si on peut discerner des étapes de l’évolution
o Coexistences de règles de différentes nature/époque/origine
Carte ‘Pays de coutumes et pays de droit écrit au XVIème siècle’
Nouvelle coutume de Paris, Art. 88-95
Code civil du Québec, art. 899-907
Concession de terre en censive, 18 nov. 1655
Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘Un procès à Québec, 1831', in Voyages en Sicile et aux États-Unis (Gallimard,
André Morel, ‘La réaction des Canadiens devant l’administration de la justice de 1764 à 1774 - une forme de
résistance passive’ (1960) 20 R. du B. 53-63
o Canadiens continuent d’utiliser le droit qu’ils avaient à la conquête
Lettre publiée dans La Minerve, 4 avril 1857
Discours prononcé par D. Girouard au ‘convocation’ de l’Université McGill, vers 1860
The Examiner, janvier 1861
Conférence de l’avocat De Bellefeuille, 1864
John E.C. Brierley and Roderick Macdonald, Quebec Civil Law : An Introduction
to Quebec Private Law, Toronto, Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, 1993 aux pp. 6-32
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10/10/2013
Comment les grands courants juridiques coexistent-ils?
Fiddler on the roof
Glenn ch 1-2
1. Théorie de la tradition
a. Interne/externe
i. Tradition comme relationnelle
ii. Theorizing tradition requires living briefly in the middle ground (overcoming separation)
Mise en perspective vs abandon de la perspective
iii. Emmanuel Lévinas : c’est par la contemplation du visage de l’Autre qu’on acquiert sa
propre identité
b. Information
i. Bran-tub comme le processus à travers lequel on choisit l’information
ii. Peut-être métaphore du château de sable mieux appropriée?
Élément de construction et d’effort
Rassemblement de grains de sable mais objectif plus gros en tête dans la façon
particulière de faire le château
Mise en relation – impossible de tracer une frontière exacte entre un château et un
autre (au grain près)
Tradition not just any information but information that reflects and creates norms
Selection/survival of certain information indicate their quality
Link between information and normativity defines the dynamism of traditions
c. Rationalité : approche de Glenn aux traditions
2. Construire les Traditions
a. Début
i. Certains exemples de traditions inventées de toute pièce
ex : le kilt
b. Dissidence
c. ‘Massaging’
i. Qui fait le massage ? Comment ? – ça varie d’une tradition à l’autre
ii. Apprentissage par cœur comme manière d’internaliser la tradition
3. Tradition et temps
a. Pastness : interaction of expectations
b. Évolution
c. Tradition instantanée
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4. Interaction
a. Communauté
b. Parasite / corruption
David : Existe-t-il un droit occidental ?
o David a précédemment exprimé son opinion qu’il existait un droit occidental à deux branches (mais tout de
même assez similaires pour être considérés ensemble comme un droit occidental)
o Beaucoup de critiques – fortes différences
o Glenn might question positionality – depends from which point, and towards which point, you are
looking at
o Continue de croire qu’ils peuvent être réunis jusqu’à un certain point sous l’ombrelle du droit occidental
o Rôle du droit en société
Société idéale est complètement régie par le droit
Rule of law (contrairement à la vision du droit dans les pays communistes)
o Coexistence des deux systèmes dans un même lieu (donne plusieurs exemples de pays) – serait
difficile avec d’autres système de droit
o Mais reconnaît que d’importantes différences subsistent
o À l’origine, différentes compréhensions de « rule of law »
CVL : en droit privé – entre particuliers
CML : en droit public – rapports entre Couronne et les particuliers
Mais rapprochement entre les deux depuis
o Opposition entre les sources de droit
Administration/État prend de plus en plus de place
Plus grand rôle pour l’État dans le droit, afin d’organiser la société
Notion trad de legal rules en CML donc mal adaptée aux conditions nouvelles
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17/10/2013
La Tradition Civiliste
Glenn, ch. 5
A Civil Law Tradition: The Centrality of the Person
I – Constructing a Tradition – no clear line between Chthonic and non-Chthonic
o No “break” from dark-age to sudden rediscovery (so somehow in agreement w Gazzaniga )
Roman law was never dead – it was always there although for a time it had lost a lot of its re-
creative ability and resonance (its ability to convince people)
o Twelve Tables (450 BC) often seen as beginning of roman law/civil law
o Sources and Institutions
o Not rooted in a single revelatory text (traditionally, but then doesn’t the code somehow
take on this role eventually?)
o No sources of law in Chthonic trad
o You could not just create sources of law – would be seen as illegitimate
o Roman law does no grow out of legislation or codification
Law of the people had to grow out of institutions in which people somehow
participated themselves, conferring legitimacy by the participatory character of
the process
Civil law is one of the two major instance in the world of creating institutions to
facilitate the growth of legal tradition through widespread public participation
Cautious initatives – at first, let some of their nobes or patricians decide an
individual case
Later, opening of courts as part of bureaucracy
o Substantive Secular Law
o ∆ Roman law found its origins in advice given by jurisconsults with respect to particular
cases or disputes
o Law that emerged looked much like life
o Multiplication of criteria to organise the world of things and property
o Justinian’s compilation of laws: Digest of the Pandects – all inclusive
o Roman Law and Law in Europe
o Roman conquests spread law
o Less importance for a time, then renewal between 11th and 13th century
o Formalization of separation of state and church
o Canon law takes its place beside Roman law
o Constructing National Law
o Law as a nation-building tool
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II – The Rationality of the Codes
o Law’s Expansion
o Inextricable link w Chthonic trad
o “Rediscovery” came with the cooptation of Chthonic law and the elaboration of regional customs
o Growth of formal law of the state implies decline in other forms of social cohesion
o Law’s Expression
o Many forms of expression
o Civil code
o Abandonment of casuistic expression
o Importance of technical and abstract expression
o The Centrality of the Person and the Growth of Rights
o Trad, lives of individ people were ones of obligations
o Enlightenment – notion of individual rights and social equality
Conceptualization of person as central (in God’s image)
o Law as Reason’s Instrument
o Enormous consequences of Judaeo-christian trad on law
o Necessity of ensuring that humanity would subdue the world and not be subdued by it
Law has a human goal, a human instrumentality
o What does it mean to be rational in law:
Human construction is possible – from nothing can be developed something
Means of creation is through logical though, and logic is embodied in that which is
known as the law of non-contradiction
III – Changing the World and Changing the Law
o In Chthonic law, change just happened
o The Self-Denial of Roman Law
o Separation of law and social change
o Roman law as product of the world
o No machinery or tradition for effecting major and radical change in law and ∆ none for
transforming the world
o Changing the Idea of Change
o Need to isolate something from the rest to change it
o Law provided a model for what could be done with facts
o Law became product of human creativity
o Effort to separate mind from matter
Law as only matter, thrown up by a particular society
Possibility of separate disciplines of philosophy of law and sociology of law
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Thought that you can be legal just by thinking, with no factual base and that you can be
legal by just looking at facts, with no normative base
Law doesn’t have to have anything to do with life and life doesn’t have to have anything
to do with law (normativity)
o Positive Law and Positive Science
o Vs natural law
o Law now growing from social norms – positive formally created law would be ultimately based on
its social acceptance
o Lawyers construct newer positive law as the instrument of human rationality
o Revolutions, Systems, Language and Interpretation
o Notion of revolution from French law
IV – Civil Law and Comparative Law
o European Identities
o Growth of roman law made the relations between traditions more complex and recognizable as
such
o Roman law = 2 kinds of law
The law of Romans, the ius civile
The law of people who weren’t Romans, the ius gentium – to simplify legal relations of
Romans with the Other
Adjustment of civil law to various external circumstances met by Romans
Plus still the chthonic traditions – non-romans kept their own legal tradition even though
in contact with romans
o Decline of chthonic law and growth of roman law common law of Europe
o Adherence of people to modern, rational law allowed creation of new identities in Europe based
on nation-state
o Construction of states and citizenship as a means of adherence to states implied disappearance of
other forms of identity
Law now excluding other solutions and voices and binding people together within a
single territory (CREATING SPACE)
o Protecting Identity
o Protection of identity achieved not by keeping people in but by keeping people out
o State and law tied together – both are territorial
o The Science of Comparison
o Civil Law in the World
o CVL trad somehow associated w dominance
o Romans dominated, national civilians dominated, world became a zone of influence of civil laws,
then colonization happened
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o Ties in w CML as a “proselytising”
Brierley and Macdonald : Quebec Civil Law
o CCQ as social constitution: text documenting compact between people by which fundamental terms
of society are established
o Centrality of the person
o Places individuals in relation to others, defining the colour of to relationships
o Establishes residual general law: droit commun
o Cc serves as ref point for later substantive legal development, as a model for the form of legal
expression, and as a compass for discovery of other, implicit, principles of private law
o Origins
o Derivative
Follows French Cc of 1804 in its systemic design and linguistic style
o Also an original construction
Incorporates superimposed elements of English and commercial law + local variation on
received Civil law
Blends ancient droit w rationalistic and liberal values of enlightenment
Local influences
Poli considerations
Econ factors
Socio-cultural factors – bilingual character and acknowledgement of specific
legal institutions
o Initial arrangement of Code by subject: concentric circles
o Organisational choices about where a particular topic is elaborated and decisions about the relative
prominence afforded any topic are as much part of the interpretational logic of the code as is the
manner in which individual rules are actually formulated
o Underlying values
o Success of code based on its expression of substantive legal principles that capture the underlying
values of the society it serves
o Main themes
o Individualism
o Authoritarianism
o Sectarianism
2 different socio-econ contexts: rural (family, land and religion) and urban
Civil law codified in 1866 internalized a tension between traditional social values
dominant in rural Qc and those liberal values associated w urban society and a
developing market econ (individualism, commerce and pluralism)
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o Moral dimension of code and social traditionalism
Paternalism and stability
Reflection of traditional values in relation to family and land
o Voluntaristic temper/liberal approach ascribed to Code in terms of its dealing with property and
contract
o Institutional context of CcQ
o Canadian federalism
Property and civil rights as prov juris
But still, Confed removed from prov control fields of law that would otherwise have
remained within realm of Cc
Fed public law, such as Charter, has diminished symbolic role of cc as social constitution
o Judicial org and procedure
CcQ influenced by judicial interp
Absence of a separate Civil law division in Qc courts means that a specific meth
appropriate to codal interp has not been developed
Codal interp undertaken within an institutional and procedural context bearing a
substantial imprint of Common law trad
Adversarial process
Deference to doctrine of precedent
Single benches at trial level
Signed judgements written in a discursive rather than syllogistic style
Appeals on merits
Recording of formal appellate dissents
Judgeship appointments from the practicing bar (not as separate career from the
outset)
o Overwhelming with public law litigation
Portalis
o Code civil comme partie intégrante de la création d’une nation
o Concept de révolution populaire à la base du code
o Centralité de la personne
____________________________________________________________________________
Traditions les plus importantes aujourd’hui : common law et droit civil
o Pourquoi?
Le colonialisme
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o Parmi les 2, laquelle est la plus importante ? Le droit civil
Idée de nation – projet politique de la codification
Transport, transmission et réception
Traduction
o D’un autre côté, le droit civil donne beaucoup d’autorité au premier législateur
Code, dans ses débuts, perçu comme approche scientifique au droit que tous devraient tenter d’égaler
o Perception de modernité : ignorant l’identité nationale qui est intégrée à la structure du Code
o Mots pour qualifier un code
Durable
Abstrait / Général – à une société donnée
Universel / Complet / Totalisant
Structuré
Concis
Accessible
Droit privé
Interprétable
Écrit
Juridique
o Définir le CcQ : Disposition préliminaire
Code civil n’est pas une constitution
C’est une loi ordinaire, loin d’être immuable, il change
Réceptacle du droit commun
Code comme constitution sociale mais pas au sens formel du terme (Brierley &
McDonald) : objectif d’identification des valeurs d’une société
Projet du Code Napoléon se combine à un projet d’unification linguistique en
France (projet politique profondément identitaire qui démarque le code d’un
autre type de loi)
Bilinguisme du CcQ, versions présentés côte-à-côte sur la même page
Glenn : Growth of a formal law of the state necessarily implies the diminution
of social cohesion (p.146)
o Code comme émanation de la puissance étatique (vision totalisante)
o Fuller: the crystallization of custom
o Fuller serait septique par rapport à la place du Code et son impact –
le verrai plus comme la cristallisation de la coutume
o Est-ce qu’on pourrait avoir un code civil dans d’autres domaines du droit?
Il peut y avoir des codes qui ne sont pas civilistes
Mais le code civil est unique dans le sens du fondement du droit commun
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o Exégèse : idée que la structure du code civil est un aspect qui en définit la spécificité
Structuré en cercles concentriques – à mesure qu’on s’approche du cercle central, on a un
niveau de cohérence plus élevé
Importance de la pensée rationnelle : idée de la non-contradiction est au cœur de la pensée
juridique en droit civil
On doit pouvoir réconcilier les dispositions du code qui ont à trait à un même thème
o Est-ce que la France est devenue civile avec l’écriture du Code ou l’était-elle déjà?
Grande similarité dans le droit avant et après le Code
Est-ce que c’est la forme du Code ou son contenu qui définit le civilisme?
À quel point peut-on réduire le civilisme au Code?
Le Code n’est peut-être qu’une représentation de l’importance accordée au
droit statuaire
Le Droit Écossais est un droit civil non-écrit
o Sont civiliste parce qu’ils partent des principes énoncés de la manière
la plus concise et abstraite possible pour les appliquer aux situations
réelles (déductif)
o Mais ça reste à la marge de l’idée de la tradition (le code représente
quand même la pierre d’assise)
19
24/10/2013
La tradition de common law
Autorité directe du CcQ par rapport à celle d’un livre de CML
o Écrit par quelqu’un sans autorité
o Donc pas un accès direct à la loi – ça doit passer par l’intermédiaire d’un interprète, le juge
Droit civil à la base est une mise de l’avant de certaines valeurs mais on ne voit pas cet exercice dans le
common law
Imagination publique, rôle dans l’identité
Accessibilité?
Irrationalité vs rationalité
Affirmation de l’empire de la rationalité réunit le droit civil et le CML
Writ (written document)
Ordre donné par le roi ou en son nom à un officiel
o Décrit la question juridique
Seule panière pour les tribunaux royaux d’avoir juridiction
o Leur juridiction était exceptionnelle
o Ne pouvait se prononcer que sur ce qui avait été saisi par autorité royale
Le jury appliquait alors les normes locales
o Étaient des gens du coin et se connaissaient souvent les parties
o Ne donne pas de raison à sa décision pcq n’y avait pas d’appels
Glen ch 7
A Common Law Tradition: The Ethic of Adjudication
I - Birth and development
No absence of law in England before Norman conquest – no evident space for emergence or creation of
new legal trad – so we only speak of birth and careful development
Cautious sampling of new ideas from continent while adapting them to necessities of legal, poli and soci
life among the franci and the anglici of England
Of Judges and Judging
o Only avenue for a Norman legal order, common to the realm, was through a loyal judiciary
o Faster, more efficient, more rational royal courts, using local knowledge, quietly insinuated
themselves into the landscape, without costing too much, and subject to some form of royal audit
o Influence of roman law
20
English judges were diff to amateur Roman ones
But manner of judging similar – actual decision made by amateurs (iudex in Rome, jury
in England)
Acted on basis of instructions from judge /praetor
Complaints in both cases went through process of screening
o Influence of Islamic law
Inns of Court/Madhahib
Lawyer’s Law: Pleading to Issue
o Development through leaning on royal commands for the resolution of individual disputes (by the
chancellor) writs
Each write gave rise to a part procedure to be followed, appro for the type of dispute
Outside the writs, no common law, no way to state a case or get before judge
Pigeon-hole
Instruction from Crown to a royal officer indicating what had to be done to advance
investigation of a dispute
Judge’s function not to decide the case – that left to jury
Judge to decide whether case fell within chosen writ, otherwise court had no jurisdiction
The Secreted law
o If you made it through all that your writ required, and the jury believed you, you would win your
case
o Writs reflected an agrarian, non-commercial, even chthonic society
o CML was in its origins, largely a law of land
o Never a reception of roman law in England in the sense of an incorp en bloc but many roman ideas
in CML, worked over, massaged and put to work in diff ways and in diff language
II – A Communal Law: not a brutal case of imposition of a conqueror’s law
Formal Limits and Informal accommodation
o Held in check by its originators
Courts did not lay claim to large areas of jurisdiction, though they were available if
people chose to use them
Writ syst limited reach of CML to that which receive royal approval
CML was suppletive and not binding
Had to be designated as common, to distinguish it from local and part laws of various
areas with which it was in constant interaction
o Since necessarily and formally limited, left much room for other types of law and social glue
o Separation of law and morals is not simply philo construc in CML hist, was just way things were
and in large measure had to be
o Still, royal courts still carry “natural” justice
21
Communal Relations
o Communal charac of CML manifested itself in ways other than use of the jury and accomod w
other institutions – reached into manner of expression and functioning of CML itself
o Land not owned in CML, but held and enjoyed
Right Reason
o Juries didn’t leave any record of how they thought but is written evidence of judicial rationality
used in CML, in process of def boundaries of writs
o Like qiyas, legitimated by ijma’ – absence of higher authority (no stare decisis)
Judges all colleagues, equals
o Law of relations and obligations, not a law of rights – no notion of subjective rights bc law comes
in between people, not based on the existence of the person in itself
But CML could still be changed to contribute to equality, lib and right without
renouncing its explicitly communal character
III – Incremental Change
Changing Secreted Law
o No concept of changing world
o World as inanimate fact awaiting reshaping but law at least was amenable to some measure of
reforming
o Internal incremental change came about in expression of law and in its avoidance – tricks and
fictions
Changing Fundamentals: Procedure
o If you couldn’t codify substantive law bc there wasn’t any, only thing left was the procedure
o ∆ heart of CML
o If problems, was here
o Idea of changing law in fund way meant changing procedure, i.e. changing writs and forms of
action
o Elimination of formal granting of writ
o Courts now open – people could sue but counsel still had to specify groungs
o Conversion of old procedural rules into substantive law
Removal of writs left substance
Judges borrowed, bc writs only went so far
Since errors possible, development of Court of Appeal and House of Lords
o Procedure remained adversarial
o Nomination of judges quam diu se bene gesserint – can’t be dismissed except for nearly
impossible procedures (contributes to indep of judiciary)
Why?
Political nature of Norman conquest and alliance w judiciary
22
Time of enlightenment
Changing Thought: Legal thought profoundly impressed w need for integration w society so doctrinal
initiatives were few and more impressive when they existed
o By 19th century, English thought had dev a large measure of compatibility w that of continent
o Codification was imposs but general idea of national pos constructed law now received great deal
of support although subj to ongoing resis to role of logic as a CML instrument
o Emergence of stare decisis
So judges making law and systematic doctrinal treatises explicating the law of judges
o But CML for then would not be a set of rules or laws but a practised framework of prac reasoning
in which no formulation is conclusively authoritative (stare decisis then is not like it is now)
IV – Common Law and Uncommon Law: many versions of CML
Common law and nation-states
o Expansion of British Empire and CML
o Less demands for compliance than other trads
o CML is weak identifier
Floats around world but provides little reinforcement for national ids, leaves much room
for accomod w other personal laws
Tendency for CML to be nationalized for purposed of national id
Western law is controllable may be given national direction
Controlling judges is a more difficult process than controlling legislation however,
nationalizing CML means doing something w common law judges and to the trad itself
(e.g. US)
The Practice of Comparison
o Most of its hist: in the process of becoming itself
o Existence in perpetual and institutional co-existence and debate w other laws (e.g. Court of
Equity)
o Civil law information contained in CML
Western Law in the World
o Western expansion Western law widespread
o Expansion in 3 ways
Private
Incld. church (bc seen as in private realm)
Today takes form of globalization
State – idea of nation-state
Rights – sees rights as essentially Western in nature and justification
Judaeo-christian-islamic rel trad of human person in image of God and as his
delegate on earth
23
Greek/Egptian rationality allowing the construction of legal systems and
concepts required for the enforcement of rights
Does not mean that app of notion of human rights in other traditions cannot
happen
Western Law and Corruption
o Western legal trads lends themselves best to corruption
Large institutional structures
Have to protect the structure and beyond
Kronman: Precendent and Tradition
Conversation about precedent, the past, and the present
Critique of precedent by philosophers such as Hobbes
o Value of precedent based in its precedence, or that must respect past for its own sake, is an
absurdity to philosophers/economists
o Judges can make mistakes
o Should replace precedent w rational policy (a study of the ends sought to be attained by the law
and the reasons for desiring them
Object is to consider and weigh the ends of legislation, the means of attaining them, and
the cost
Pros and cons to everything
= Economics
BUT to insist on independence and finality of judge’s natural reason and past’s lack of authoritative force is
to import into law the attitude of philosophy (not philosophy of law but a philosophical replacement for it)
Schauer exemplifies a way of thinking about precedent that is common among contemporary philosophers
of law (thinking further than supporting precedent purely on pastness)
1) Argument for fairness – like cases treated alike
2) Argument from predictability (has costs and benefits)
3) Strengthened decision-making
i. Conserving the decisional resources of decision-makers (their time and energy) by
allowing them to avoid reconsidering questions already considered
ii. Works to dampen the variability that would result from dissimilar decision-makers –
similarity enhances credibility and power of judges and the institutions associated w them
Based on 2 claims
Utilitarian – global welfare, what is best
Deontological – individual rights, what is fair
24
Both ideas are intelligible only if we remove ourselves from our real temporal situation and
examine the society and legal sys we inhabit from what may properly be called a timeless point of
view
Zinn, Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order
Person who commits civil disobedience must not accept his punishment as right if it isn’t so, if it is
immoral
o We shouldn’t support the “rule of law” in the abstract, purely on its merits, when it causes
injustice
o When unjust decisions are accepted, injustice is sanctioned and perpetuated – when they become
the rule, then the government and its officials should be toppled
o When unjust decisions appear and are violated, it is a healthy discrimination between right and
wrong
o If social function of protest is to change the unjust conditions of society, then can’t stop w a court
decision or jail sentence – if is morally justified, it is so to the end. Stopping at a court decision is
like accepting the loss at a sports game (protest then becomes a token, a gesture)
Citizenry should not behave as if it was the state and had the same interests
o Courts necessarily take side of the state
o Locke and Jefferson: govs are instituted among people for certain ends and if becomes destructive
of those ends, then it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it
Gov not synonymous w people of the nation, is an artificial device, set up by citizens for
certain purposes
No sacred aura, needs to be watched, checked, criticized, opposed
Civil disobedience is the deliberate, discriminate, violation of law for a vital social purpose
There is no social value to a gen obedience to the law, any more than there is value to a general
disobedience to it
o Abstract subservience to the rule of law can only encourage strong tendency of citizens to bow to
power of authority, to desist from challenging status quo
Civil disobedience may involve violation of laws which are not in themselves obnoxious in order to protest
imp issue
o Importance of law being violated would need to be measured against importance of issue
If specific act of civ disob is a morally justifiable act of protest, then the jailing of those engaged is immoral
and should be opposed/contested to the end
Those who engage in civ diso should choose tactics which are as nonviolent as poss, consonant w
effectiveness of their protest and imp of the issue
o Must be a reasonable rel between degree of disorder and significance of issue at stake
25
Degree of disorder in civ diso should not be weighed against false presumption of peace
Must never forget that the state and the citizens are separate in their interests
26
Foundations Plenary #2 (07/11/2013)
“Indigenous” defined in Constitution
Problems with the use of terms such as “indigenous”, “first nations”, “aboriginals”?
o Subsumes people into one category, whereas in reality there is great diversity among them
o Emphasizes their otherness
o Terms come from colonialism
Glenn uses word “chthonic” because what they all have in common is a particular relationship with the
earth (as in autochtone)
o But his chapter on the chthonic traditions is very broad – surface but not diving really into the
material
Some themes for the session
o Status of indigenous law in Canada
o The method question
What are the criteria to identify law?
Who is establishing these criteria?
Who is speaking about law?
o The justice question
o Two specific legal traditions
Any articulation of law is made in relation or response to something
John Borrows reading
o Makes two claims:
FN law is part of Canadian law
FN law exists
In past, was often though indigenous did not have any legal system
o FN law is a fact of life that has persisted
o Canadian law on Aboriginal peoples evolved from inter-societal law
o FN law forms part of the family of legal tradition in Canada, it can be a more general resource
(jurists should be able to use them outside of issues of FN rights)
o FN legal sources can be translated to be accessible to outsiders
History: Aboriginal law at times recognized, or not, sometimes even prohibited
o Royal proclamation
o Some early recognition of Aboriginal law in cases of marriage
o Dominant story: the Indian Act
Several specific prohibitions of cultural/legal practices
Attempted to undermine traditional styles of government
o Sentencing: some recognition of sentencing circles
27
Consensus decision-making, emphasizing relationships and health of all people involved
rather than just the punishment
o In a few cases, the Court has accepted the holding of a feast to put an end to the shame that has
fallen upon their house because of a particular incident (civil damages)
o Questions of subjective state of mind
James Sakej Henderson (video)
o Investigating Indigenous jurisprudence:
What? FN law as a dream
Who? How? There is a particular way to learn, involving practice and ceremonies
Leaning FN jurisprudence means doing it on their terms
Hoebbel and Llewellyn
o How to investigate Cheyenne law?
Ideological path – rules, ideal patterns, real ways (looking for real ways)
The descriptive path – actual patterns out of behaviour
The trouble case – the view that prevails when things go wrong, what is imperative and
not just proper, remedies
Functional/Structural Approach
o Llewellyn & Hoebel, The Cheyenne Way
o The killing of a Cheyenne by another Cheyenne is a sin which bloodies the Sacred Arrows and
endangers the people; it is a crime against the peace and the people, and normally within the
exclusive jurisdiction of the tribal authorities
o The rule that the kin of the victim of a killing are privileged to seek self-redress in their own right,
or to retaliate, is no longer law. However, the authorities are directed to take due account of the
natural feelings of the victim’s kin
o It is the expected duty of every citizen, and esp of the military societies, to intervene in disputes
before they reach the stage of killing
o Demonstration in jurisprudence
Casimel v Insurance Co of BC
Grandparents were effectively parents under customary adoption
Delgamuukw v BC Trial
Proving “organized society”
R v Gladstone
Intertribal trade characterized as commercial right
R v Marshall; R v Bernard
Translating use of land into exclusive occupation
Interpretive Approach
o Clifford Geertz – haqq, adat, dharma
28
Starts with provisional term in indigenous language
Unravel cognate term to get “legal sensibility”
Reflect back on assumed grounds of your legal sensibility
o James Clifford and others
Ethnography is production of a cultural text or obhect
Translations actively negotiated by specific, located persons
In a given research context (often colonial)
Culture isn’t something lying on the ground you discover and put in a text – your
ethnographic writing is a product of your own experience
Poetic translation
o Invisible translator (as if text was written in its original language)
o Mark of the foreign (text struggling with way of expressing original)
Prof. Anker’s points
o Law is translation – the trickster, rather than “our terms” v assimilation
How much are you going to translate?
o Translation is a constructive activity, in a context (the sausage factory)
o The “mark of the foreign” – centaur idiom makes space for new meaning – is transformative
Songlines reading
o In CML, title deed is based on
Unbroken chain of custody
Definition of geographical boundaries
o Mapping as exertion of power over territory
o Mapping is influenced by view of property and territory
Glenn ch.3
A Chthonic Legal Tradition: To Recycle the World
Chthonic = live in or in chose harmony with the earth – attempt to describe a tradition by criteria internal to
itself
A tradition emerges: no point of origin
o Some sat info so varied can’t speak of a single traditions – yet amongst such diversity the trad also
tells us there are constants (identity)
o Of sources and structures
Most evident feature of trad has been its orality in both form and substance
No great preoccupation with voluminous detail
Trad still includes transmission of detail: words of ceremony, techniques of life – but
only at level which can be managed by human means of recall
29
Law as a repertoire, a repository in which all or most share and in which they may
participate
Important info is learned by all so they can participate in the ongoing process
Bc of its orality, does not lend itself to complex institutions – less danger of pecuniary
and institutional corruption, fewer positions of prestige and authority – rule is more
consultative – no armies, so chiefs can continue to function only to extent that they
generate general concensus
Dispute resolution: open and immediately accessinle
Law is immediately applicable, by adjudicators and preferably by the parties themselves
o On ways of life: recall those of Europe before enlightenments
Family law characterized by informality (like Chthonic law in general)
Living close to the land and in harmony with it means limiting technology which could
be destructive of natural harmony
No incentive for dev of complex machines, no way of accumulating wealth
through their use
Human person not elevated to a position of domination or dominium over
natural world
Use of land: communal or collective, no formal concept of property, no right of
alienation
Problem of ip law for protecting chthonic knowledge and art (collective vs
original to an individual)
Crime: responsibility of civil society – injury to a member = to the group
Absence of courts in most instances, reparation by negotiation between groups,
payment or equivalent punishment
The web of beliefs: law as social glue – chthonic law interwoven with all beliefs
o Law’s domain: law indistinguishable form all else in the chthonic world but not co-terminous with
all else. Isn’t controlling over all else (didn’t get to call all the shots) – it has its place.
It is kept in place by the ongoing presence and vitality of all other elements of the
chthonic world (e.g. religion)
o Reason’s domain: some forms of innovation, notion of invention / creation submerged in long line
of intellectual forbears
Since present indiv is submerged in past and wider community, there is no indiv power to
obtain the object of indiv will. There are no rights.
Chthonic law protects you, but you have no way of protecting yourself against it
o Law and the cosmos
Religion as constant presence absence of formal structure
No such thing as a secular world or simple facts of nature
30
Natural world is divine – not to harmed
Laws of nature neither descriptive nor positive: they are normative and there is a moral
duty to obey the law
Can it be described as customary law? Depends on our concept of custom. Custom in
sense that people adhere to it, then yes,
Change and the natural world
o Immutable tradition and hostility to change – Glenn disagrees
o Time not as a race an arrow or a flowing commodity but as an envelope, an environment
o Change in time, but not actual passing of time: world must be re-cycled
So there is great flexibility in chthonic existence
Best view if that trad has a fundamental core: the sacred character of the world
Tradition not immutable but vulnerable – open to endless debate as to its interpretation
and application – can be rejected in its most fundamental teaching and disappear
Chthonic ways and other ways: way is unstructured, blending into surrounding landscape – did not have a
sharp institutionalized sense of their own identity when european people arrived amongst them
o Identification based on chthonic tradition: abstract and general, allows great flexibility on the
ground
o Chthonic and other identities: there are no pure chthonic traditions in world today
Exchange of info w chthonic trad is facilitated by its open character
Middle ground greated – place in between though there is constant danger of
discontinuity in the traiditio of the oral tradition
Yet the continuing existence of chthonic trad indicates that openness and vulnerability are
not the dominant criteria in the ongoing life of a trad – it depends rather on what the trad
says
o The state as middle ground
Greatest indicator of interdependent character of chthonic id today is the state – no
chthonic peoples in the world who do not live within a state
Complex relationship, and variable - crisis
State constructed by western powers in colonized territories
State constructed by western powers in process of perm settlement in colonized
territories
o Chthonic topics
Influence of chthonic though on enviro attitudes in west has been significant
Chthonic concept of legal relations between human beings and land is also one which has
generated enormous reflection in western world
Chthonic though in matters of crime and criminal repression also provides an ongoing
alternative to western practices of determination of individual guilt and incarceration
31
o Chthonic peoples, states and human rights
Do not represent the new diasporas – they are arguing based on a prior claim
Present constitutions are said to have to be shaken out to become more inclusive, less
conflictual, more accommodating of cult diversity through deployment of a wider range
of consti devices
Rights dominate contemp state structures in west – are object of itnl declarations
Rights of chthonic peoples follows as consequence of existence of state structures which
surround them – but what of chthonic law’s relation to the state (superior or inferior to
state defined rights)?
o Universalizing the chthonic
Not known as aggressive or dominating peoples – nature of trad is broadly supporting of
its non-universalizing character, at least by aggressive means
__________________________________
Retour en classe
Jusqu’à quel point une tradition peut-elle être fragmentée tout en restant une même tradition?
Glenn fait l’argument que les traditions « autochtones » partagent certains point communs qui leurs sont
fondamentaux
o Is this a stretch? Is he maybe just defining chthonic law by what it is not? Defining chthonic
legal tradition by its others/otherness?
o Évolutionnisme? Perspective occidentale? Port de jugement?
32
Talmudic tradition (14/11/2013)
Assise de la tradition est divine, échappe au pouvoir des hommes
Collégialité entre Dieu et les humains
Absence de début de la tradition (Moise n’est pas l’origine)
Mont Sinai = révélation d’éléments concrets de la tradition
o Dieu donne la loi suite au consentement du peuple juif (« covenant »)
Création d’Israël remet en cause la structure même de la tradition talmudique à l’intérieur du pays
Glenn, ch. 4
Revelation on Mount Sinai as a critical juncture: completely changed existing law, from there, constant dialogue
(inverted pyramid)
A tradition rooted in revelation
o Written Torah = Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (General
electric light bulbs never dim)
o Oral Torah
Starts with Moses explaining and elaborating written tradition
Methods of learning by heart
Since started w Moses had status equal to written teaching oral tradition was also
Divine
With diaspora, became necessary to write down oral content Mishnah
Interpretation and commentary of the Mishnah the Talmud
Mitzvat Talmud Torah
No specific author to Talmud – was never completed, a door was closed but a winder
opened – Talmud not meant to end the debate but to provide means for its continuance,
within the tradition
Talmud is most important single element in bran-tub of jewish legal trad: contains a great
deal of varying opinion but did not purport to exclusivity
Also codes, legislation, Sanhedrin, general assembly of elders, response (by
rabbis)
o Applying divine law
No appeals
o The divine law applied
Open procedural and adjudicative structure
Law applied as substantive, not procedural
Private law resembles that of Western and Islamic trads
Also much that would not be considered law in West
33
Family law = consensual
Obligations but no rights
The Talmud and revelation
o Halakhah and aggadagh
Halakhah = law
Aggadah = the rest of the content of the Torah and the Talmud
Both have source in divine will and revelation
Talmudic tradition covers almost everything – religion is everywhere (incld. everyday
life)
o Talmud and Torah
Talmud not directly from Moses, but still rooted in Torah, so of same importance
Relation between the two = feedback
o The style of the text
Not declaratory or imperative
Argumentative – relaxed and ongoing argument
Nobody tells you what the law is purpose of response
Unfinished
Talmud = open to all, includes voices of the many
o The style of reason
Combines endless variations of life with the use of simple but really technical models
Resistance to the systematizing impulse
Discipline of thought but is polyvalent and tolerates contradiction
o The individual in the Talmud
No individual rights – but obligations
Does place human in proviledged position in universe
Talmud, the divine will and change
o Of schools, traditions and movements Diversity
o Talmud and corruption: more acute in ultra-orthodox (almost as if the fact that the limit dialogue
causes corruption of tradition)
Talmudic law and state law
o Talmudic law and Jewish identity: Jewish identity defined by recall and use of information, or
memory (i.e. the Talmud).
o Talmudic retreat? – Possibility for Talmud to be deeply influenced, adapted, from contact with
other legal traditions (bc it is unfinished)
This may assure survival of Talmudic law
But Talmudic law also criticized on grounds of equality and equity
o Talmudic example?
34
Some suggest obligations are stronger than rights – they offer greater protection
o A universal Talmud?
Talmud does not teach that it must be universalized
Generally open – can only justify aggression as way of defence
Horowitz
Divine basis but system based on dialogue
Paramountcy of the spirit over the letter of the law
Law and morality all together – reciprocal effects between law and ethics
Emphasis on duties rather than on rights
Title One: Torah – Chapter II Preliminary notions
Covenant
Pentateuch
No distinction between religious, legal and ethical
Perelman: Interprétation juridique
Textes légaux sont un élément mais pas l’unique point de départ, de l’interprétation juridique
On interprète un texte quand il manque de clarté. Un texte est clair aussi longtemps que toutes les
interprétations raisonnables qu’on pourrait en donner conduisent à la même solution. Dans les
circonstances qui sortent de l’ordinaire, le texte manquera donc de clarté. Quand le sens clair d’un texte
contredit la finalité de l’institution qu’il est censé servir, ou heurte l’équité, ou conduit à des conséquences
socialement néfastes, on s’efforcera de l’interpréter
Pas toujours des personnes « compétentes » qui interprètent un texte
Interprétation statique v interprétation dynamique
o Statique : la volonté du législateur (apparait objectif mais ne l’est pas)
o Dynamique : en fonction du bien commun ou de l’équité, tels que le juge les conçoit (risque de
supprimer la différente entre la règle qui a été promulguée et celle que l’on voudrait instaurer)
Problème du droit juif qui interdit l’existence de nouvelle législation – quand même place au dialogue
Caractéristique de l’interprétation judiciaire consiste d’une part dans son respect des institutions et de leur
fonctionnement habituel, d’autre part, dans la recherche de l’équité
35
Islamic Law
Qur’an
o Niveau de conciliation des suras et position de Mohammed favorable aux femmes comme
dépendant de la situation de Mohammed
Jusqu’à récemment cette position considérée comme contraire à la foi islamique
(perspective interne)
Mais développement d’une perspective plus « externe »
o Pas de séparation entre droit et non-droit
o Contradictions sont la faute des humains qui essaient de comprendre, pas de Dieu ou Mohammed
Hadith
o Deux aspects : Isnad et Hadith
o Incompatibilités entres les hadith – il y en a tellement
o Une partie des hadiths sont donc faux
Ijma’- ijtihad
Qiyas
Difficulté d’insérer l’état dans la pyramide
Dar al-harb, dar al-islam, dar al-suhl
Est-ce qu’il y a plusieurs Islams?
Nahrain: on effects of British rule on Islamic law in India
British rule cemented Islamic law, rendering it incapable of adaptation and taking away its inherent plurality.
Distinction between personal and secular law = part of political and economic project of British, solidified
their power
Then embarked on process of codification and translation (uniformisation) while ignoring customary law
and inherent plural nature of Islamic law
o Islamic law had changed form but also substance
Perception of Muslims and Hindus as oppositional, distinct, and homogeneous – which was false
foundation of conflict between people, and forced people into these two categories (just among Muslims
was great diversity)
Family law = only space for ulema to assert power
o Law became ground for pursuing political goals
o i.e. religion became ground for pursuing political goals
o Further uniformisation in effort to unite “Muslim” people against British rule
o Implement Shariat Application Act and Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act (DDMA) in 1937
and 1939 respectively
o Assertion of Muslim identity often affected women most – women’s rights misused to further
political agenda while marginalising their interests
36
o Women = markers of identity
Glenn
An Islamic Legal Tradition: The Law of A Later Revelation
Draws attention to many similarities with Talmudic Law (174, 175, 176, 188)
Law-seeking process not adversarial as in CML and not investigative as in CVL
o Emphasis on compromise
o Concrete facts over broad principle or universal abstract norms
Remarkable lack of institutional support – qadi occupies formal institutional position but beyond this
Islamic law is simply sustained by the community
Influence of Arabic chthonic law in substance of Shari’a (e.g. law of family and succession)
Recognition of private property and state/communally owned property (parallels the West)
Law of obligations impressed with the broader ethic of the Qur’an
o Prohibition of speculation and the unfair distrb of risk
Closing of the door of ijtihad taqlid
Purely subjective is proscribed – no word for “right” in legal language BUT general importance of the
individual in the tradition
o Human welfare has priority over liberty
o Does not purpot to guarantee equality of treatment of all persons
World as sacred yet also obligation to pursue knowledge
Admission of some form of secular authority, toleration for local, information tradition where it is
compatible w Islamic teaching
NOT binary – pluralism (e.g. five classes of conduct)
Many islams? Umma as different enough from non-umma
No compulsion in religion vs operative concept of apostasy
Islamic tradition of human rights based on the Islamic state
o Islamic lawyers challenge “rights” to ensure respect for the human person, pointing to flagrant
violations, nationalization of universal norms and the need for social arrangement that are in the
common interest
Exchange between western and Islamic ideas
Jihad as striving, special status of “people of the book”
Vers une tradition future (28/11/2013)
Glenn
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Livre essaie de faire deux choses à la fois: descriptions des traditions et argumentation qu’en à la place de
la place de la rationalité dans diverses traditions
La nature des grandes traditions
o Complexité et diversité interne
Chaque trad a des sous-trad internes
Traditions transversales (eg rationalité, tolérance, jugement, etc)
o Tendance universaliste
« At the core of the universalizing tendency of any tradition is necessarily its
normativity »
Complexité et mutlivalence
o Bivalence (beurre) = illusion d’après Glenn
o Multivalence : catégories sont vagues, entrecroisées
Exemple du tas de sable
« On ne peut pas être à moitié enceinte » - évolution scientifique
“We must all be agnostics to some extent” – il faut refuser de faire profession de foi pour
adhérer à la multivalence
o “Complex traditions thus reach the stage of complexity, and of being major traditions, because of
their ability to deal with diversity, contradictions and the demands for what is usually known as
change.”
Sous-traditions
o Contraditions = pas grave
o Multivalece devalue l’approche comparative
Pas d’incommensurabilité
Coexistence de traditions incompatibles ainsi possible
o Cohérence externe
Sous-traditions ne peuvent exclure toute autre
o Une méta-tradition?
“Sustaining diversity means accepting (not tolerating) the major, complex legal traditions
of the world (all of them). It means seeing them as mutually interdependent such that the
loss of any of them would be a loss to all the others, which would then lose a major
source of support, or at least of self-interrogation”
Existence d’une méta-tradition puisqu’à l’intérieur d’une meme tradition des traditions
diverses coexistent
Kasirer
1) Île de la Désolation
2) Île de Speranza
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3) L’autre île
Droit robinsonien? Lecture relationnelle de l’ordonnancement juridique
Droit pour nommer, pour donner un sens au monde autour de nous
Droit comme rituel, ordonnancement
Multivalence individuelle
Kasirer rejète l’idée que le droit est nécessairement relationnel – la diversité est-elle une précondition du droit?
Glenn dit que le fondamentalisme attaque la diversité à l’intérieur du droit et vient saper l’autorité du droit
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