Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

The New Colombian Law Of Bills And Notes

Michigan Law Review

The collection of "Laws Presented to the Government of Colombia by the Commission of American Financial Experts, and an Exposition of Motives by the Latter" (Bogota, 1923, Casa Editorial de Cromos; with an introduction by Dr. Cesar Julio Rodriguez), states by way of introduction that Law 60 of 1922 authorizes the government to contract abroad with five experts in public administration to come to Colombia and assist in the preparation of bills for laws or decrees for the reorganization of the national fiscal system. In accordance with this law the Colombian Minister at Washington, Dr. Enrique Olaya Herrera, engaged the …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

"Current Funds" As "Money" In Commercial Paper

Michigan Law Review

By the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law, §1 (2), it is provided that an instrument to be negotiable "must contain an unconditional promise or order to pay a sum certain in money"; and by Section 6 (5) it is declared that "the validity and negotiable character of an instrument are not affected by the fact that * * * [it] designates a particular kind of current money in which payment is to be made." The Illinois statute inserts before the word "designates" the following: "Is payable in currency or current funds, or." There is nothing in the language of the statute …

The Machinery Of Procedural Reform, Edson R. Sunderland

Michigan Law Review

Much has been said and written about the imperfections of legal procedure. It is a subject of great interest and concern to the bar and to the public. Since rules of practice prescribe the conditions under which rules of law may be made operative, in so far as they fail of their purpose the law itself becomes ineffective. Lord Campbell is reported to have said that "The due distribution of justice depends more upon the rules by which suits are conducted than on the perfection of the code by which rights are defined."

Recognition Of Foreign Decree Annulling Marriage

Michigan Law Review

Decisions considering the question of jurisdiction to annul a marriage or the recognition to be afforded to a decree of annulment rendered by a But upon questions in the law of divorce authorities are legion. American lawyers naturally tum to divorce as the means of securing relief for clients from distasteful or unbearable marital difficulties. But annulment cases are increasing in number, and the increase in some states may be expected to continue. In Di Lorenzo v. Di Lorenzo, 174 N. Y. 467, the court of appeals said that every misrepresentation of a material fact, made with the intention …

The Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Two years ago an American citizen who had been a resident of Mexico for many years died intestate in Mexico City. The widow was appointed administratrix by one of the Mexican civil courts. Finding among the papers a number of notes executed by an American corporation payable to the deceased, the administratrix began an action in New York to have whatever was due upon the notes paid to the estate. The corporation's attorneys moved for judgment on the pleadings, contending that an administratrix appointed by a Mexican court can maintain no action in courts of the United States so long …

The Reform Of Civil Procedure, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Professor Sunderland addresses the pernicious involvement of legislators in legal reform, contrary to the English model. This duty should be left to those who know the Law better than any: "The courts constitute the judicial department of the state, and the judges who preside and the lawyers who practice in them are the selected group of trained men charged with the responsibility for administering the law."

Railway Valuation In Condemnation Proceedings--Relation To Rate Making

Michigan Law Review

ln England the reproduction cost of a railroad is disregarded in fixing the price which a government must pay on taking over the property. Grand Trunk Ry. v. The King [1923] A. C. 150, which affirmed the decision of two out of three arbitrators that the preferred and common stockholders should get nothing, inasmuch as the earning capacity of the railroad gave them no value, and the "reproduction" or "reconstruction'' or "replacement" value of the railroad was immaterial. Mr. Taft, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was one of the arbitrators and dissented. The opinions …

Constitutional Law--Executive Pardons In The Courts

Michigan Law Review

An interesting conflict between American political theories and early English precedents arose in a recent case involving the jurisdiction of a court of equity to set aside a pardon procured through fraud and deception upon the pardoning power. At the common law any suppression of the truth or suggestion of falsehood in procuring a pardon was held to vitiate it. HAWKINS, B. 2, ch. 37, § 8; 4 BLACK. COMM. 398, 400. The statute of 27 EDW. III, c. 2, provided that where a pardon was granted at any man's suggestion, the fact of such suggestion and the name of …

Fundamental Tendencies In Modern Jurisprudence, Rudolf Stammler

Michigan Law Review

The reception of Roman law presented new problems to jurisprudence.

At the end of the fifteenth century the reception of Roman law and canon law, together with the Lombard feudal law, was complete throughout the entire continent of Europe.

As a matter of fact, Roman law had come northward in the East from Constantinople at the same time that it was coming into Germany from the South and West; but that is for our question of no particular importance. The chief point is that everywhere there was the need of becoming familiar with this foreign law, so far as that …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The Law Book Of The Future, William W. Cook

Michigan Law Review

In an article published in November, 1922, in the American Bar Association Journal on the "Power and Responsibility of the American Bar and its Relations to Democratic Institutions," the author pointed out the achievements of the profession in developing the law to meet the political and industrial needs of the American people. There is still other important work for the profession to do. Blackstone's and Kent's Commentaries have been outgrown and there is an imperative demand for a comprehensive and practical American treatise on all law for the use of law students and lawyers, legislators and the educated classes generally. …

International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself, as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure.

The Law Of Property Act, 1922, Joseph Warren

Michigan Law Review

The English law of property legislation, which has been pending for over two years, was passed June 29 last. It will take effect January 1, 1925. For a century the reform of the law of real property has been a burning question in England-far more so than with us. Judges, lawyers, solicitors, conveyancing experts have all taken an active part. Learned societies have spoken through committees and royal commissions have reported. Piece by piece many of the antiquities have been abolished. But no reform is as far-reaching as the present act. In January, 1919, the Acquisition and Valuation of Land …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

The Supreme Court's Adjudication Of Constitutional Issues In 1921-1922, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

The power of Congress over the territories was involved in three cases. Balzac v. Porto Rico held that Porto Rico has not been "incorporated" into the United States so as to make applicable the constitutional requirement of trial by jury in criminal cases. This had been substantially settled in some of the Insular Cases, leaving only the question whether the situation had since been changed. In holding that it had not, Chief Justice Taft placed chief reliance on the absence of any explicit declaration by Congress and on the fact that in the Organic Act of Porto Rico of March …

Archaic Methods Of Validating A Contract-The "Blow And The "Libation"

Michigan Law Review

Sir Henry Maine tells us that at the ·dawn of Roman jurisprudence the term in use for contract was one which is very familiar to students of historical Latinity. "It was nexum, and the parties to the contract were said to be nexi." MAINE, ANCIENT LAW [Ed. 10, by Pollock], 328. Manilius, a Latin antiquarian, describes nexum as omne quad per libram et aes geritur, in quo sint mancipia, "every transaction with the copper and the balance, in which class are mancipia." VARRO, DE L. L. 7, 105. Mancipation was a conveyance, and Maine says that this …

Neutrality Of British Dominions, C D. Allin

Michigan Law Review

The recent Cannes conference has revived the question of the -international status of the British dominions. Article IV of the proposed Anglo-French Alliance provided that "the present treaty shall impose no obligation upon any of the dominions of the British Empire unless and until it is approved by the dominion concerned." In short, the dominions were left free to pursue an independent foreign policy in European affairs.

Book Reviews, Burke Shartel, Grover C. Grismore, S C. Ho, S M. Ho, Evans Holbrook, Henry M. Bates

Michigan Law Review

History of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1851. By Mary Floyd Williams. University of California Publications in History, Volume XII. "Berkeley: The University of California Press. 192I. Pp. xii, 543.

Judges In The Executive Council Of Upper Canada, William Renwick Riddell

Michigan Law Review

When in December, 1791, Upper Canada began her separate provincial career, her first Lieutenant-Governor, Colonel John Graves Simcoe, said that the Constitution of the Province was "the very image and transcript of that of Great Britain."'

Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …

Book Reviews, Edgar N. Durfee, Edwin D. Dickinson, Burke Shartel, Leonard D. White, Evans Holbrook, C E. Griffin, Ding Sai Chen

Michigan Law Review

Although the three lectures contained in this volume are propounded as a "trinity," the reader will not find in them that unity which is of the essence of a trinity, as distinguished from an aggregate of three. The author proposes a "triune division" of legal science, Past, Present and Future. But the first lecture deals with a particular phase of the past, the second with a remotely related phase of the present, and the last with a quite unrelated phase of the future, so that they have little in common, save the brilliance that sparkles through them all.

Requisitioned And The Government-Owned Ship, J. Whitla Stinson

Michigan Law Review

Jurisdiction over requisitioned and government-owned merchantmen and their liabilities under maritime laws are questions which present no real novelty. They were regarded by the ancient sea-law and were as familiar to it as they have recently become,-on account of the exigencies of the late war, to the admiralty systems of to-day. The maritime law of Rome supplies modem cases with the most cogent parallels and is reflected today in the jurisprudence of France and other continental and Latin countries. The jurisdictional question which figures most prominently in these cases relates to the authority to arrest or libel the property of …

Judges In The British Cabinet And The Struggle Which Led To Their Exclusion After 1806, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail.

Statutes Of Edward I Their Relation To Finance And Administration, Nathan Isaacs

Michigan Law Review

Perhaps the most far-reaching effect of the American Civil war, in the long run, could be illustrated by a chart showing government expenditures before and after that rebirth of the nation. The jump from the bottom of the chart to the top, with no apparent tendency to return, reflects a new conception of the function of the government, the creation of new powers and a redistribution of- the old ones. In like manner one of the most significant features of the present period of reconstruction throughout the civilized world seems likely to find its graphic representation in a curve that …

Reading From Ancient Chinese Codes And Other Sources Of Chinese Law And Legal Ideas, John Wu

Michigan Law Review

With the legal profession today there is a growing interest in Vthe study of universal legal ideas. Legal ideas, it would seem, gain strength by extension both in time and in space. ,As ius" gentium is necessarily more congenial to human reason than ius civie, so it may. be said that the laws of all ages are more deep-seated in human nature than those of a particular generation. The scope of comparative jurisprudence, therefore, embraces all the length and breadth of legal scholarship, so that it cannot afford to ignore any materials that may give us light upon the legal …

Preventive Justice Through Declaratory Relief, Edson R. Sunderland

Other Publications

Professor Sunderland describes the history, and current directions, of declaratory judgments. "The practice of making declarations of right has completely revolutionized English remedial law. The American lawyer who peruses the current English reports is bewildered by their novelty...."

Declaratory Judgments, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

The Declaratory Judgments Act of Michigan (Act No. 150, P. A. 1919) provided as follows: (Sec. 1) "No action or proceeding in any court of record shall be open to objection on the ground that a merely declaratory judgment, decree or order is sought thereby, and the court may make binding declarations of rights whether any consequential relief is or could be claimed, or not, including the determination, at the instance of anyone claiming to be interested under a deed, will or other written instrument, of any question of construction arising under the instrument and a declaration of the rights …

Constitution Of The Empire Of Japan, George A. Malcolm

Michigan Law Review

In the history of the Japanese people, five dates stand out above all others. They are 66o B. 'C., when, according to legendary account, the Empire of Japan was founded .by the Emperor Jinmu; 1853, when Commodore Perry, with an American squadron, anchored offside what is now Yokohama and caused the opening of Japan to foreign intercourse; 1867-1868, when there was a restoration'of the monarchy, marking the beginning of the Meiji Era of Constitutionalism; and 1889, when the Constitution of Japan was promulgated.

Salient Points In The German Constitution Of 1919, Simeon E. Baldwin

Michigan Law Review

The German Constitution of i919 is the production of the right wing of those belonging to the party known as the Social Democrats, and until the fall of the empire commonly called the International Socialist ,Party.