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Institutions of Representation: Civil Justice and the Public
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
Discussion of the distribution and delivery of legal services usually turns on the problem of civil justice for the poor. Our attention is so dominated by the problems of distributive justice for the poor that we ignore the more general problem of civil justice for the public.
In Western society the primary function of law has been the protection and regulation of property. Indeed, the earliest liberal conceptions of public life are founded on the premise that men gave up an utterly private life in order to enjoy the utilities provided by public protection for their persons and, even more important, the fruits of their labors—in Locke's (1689: Art. 123) phrase, "their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name property." In the earliest liberal tradition, the holding of property is the foundation for participation in public life; accordingly, the principal end of the civil law is the definition and protection of property rights.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association
Footnotes
An earlier version of this paper was persented to the Conference on the Delivery and Distribution of Legal Services, State University of New York at Buffalo Law School, October 12, 1973.
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