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Quot judices tot sententiae: A study of the English reaction to continental interpretive techniques

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Shael Herman
Shael Herman*
Affiliation:
University of Tulane
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Extract

When the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the English bench and bar must have perceived only dimly the challenges before them. Like contemporary descendants of Noah, they dropped into a Babel of languages and legal terms indispensable to the operation of the European Commission and the Court of Justice. Membership in the European Economic Community entailed the substantive harmonisation of English laws with those of other member states, and England's common law tradition could not have made the process easy. But the scope of the harmonisation task reached beyond substantive law to deeply rooted judicial attitudes toward the role of legislation and techniques of interpretation. In a recent editorial, Dr C. D. Ehlermann, Director of Legal Services for the European Commission, offered reasons for the English judiciary's potential resistance towards harmonisation of interpretative techniques.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , July 1981 , pp. 165 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1981

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References

1. C. D. Ehlermann, (1978) 15 Common Market Law Review 7. Interesting speculations on England's adjustment to membership in the European Economic Community appear in Chloros, ‘English Law and European Law: The Problem of harmonisation’ (1972) 36 Rabels Zeitschrift für aüsländisches und internationales Privatrecht 603. On legislative interpretation see N. S. Marsh, ‘Interpretation in a National and International Context’ (1974); C. D. Ehlermann and I. Sinclair, ‘The Interpretation of Community Law’ (1976) and Bredimas, ‘Methods of Interpretation and Community Law’ (1978). On the special question of English treaty construction, see Lipstein, ‘Some Practical Comparative Law: The Interpretation of Multi-Lingual Treaties with Special Regard to EEC Treaties, (1974) 48 Tul L Rev 907. For an excellent treatment of the United Kingdom in the European Community, see Lord MacKenzie Stuart, (1977). The European Communities and the Rule of Law.

2. Opinion in Court of Appeal, [1977] 1 All ER 518. Opinion in House of Lords, [1977] 3 All ER 1048.

3. Ibid.

4. [1977] 1 All ER 521–522.

5. [1977] 1 All ER 522.

6. Ibid.

7. [1974] 2 All ER 1226 at 123637.

8. [1977] 1 All ER 522–523.

9. [1977] 3 All ER 1053.

10. Cie L'Helvetia v Cie, Seine el Rhone [1973] Bulletin des Transports 195.

11. British American Tobacco Co (Nederland) BV v Van Swieten BV (unreported)(30 March 1977).

12. [1977] 3 All ER 1054.

13. [1977] 3 All ER 1060.

14. Ibid.

15. (19491 2 KB 481.

16. Ibid.

17. Denning, The Discipline of Law (1979) p. 13 (hereinafter cited as Discipline).

18. [1951] 2 All ER 839.

19. Discipline, supra, p. 14, n. 31.

20. [1974] 2 All ER 1226 at 123G37.

21. [1949] 2 KB 481.

22. (1584) 3 Co Rep 7a. Quoted in Thorne, ‘The Equity of a Statute and Heydon's Case, (1936). 31 Ill L Rev 202 at 214, n.44 (hereinafter cited as Thome).

23. YB 16 Edw. III, 1, 90, YB 19 Edw. III, 12. Quoted in Thorne, ‘The Equity of a Statute and Heydon's Case’, (1936) 31 Ill L Rev 202 at 214 n.44 (cited as Thome).

24. Thorne, supra, pp. 208–209, 36.

25. Sacks & Harlow, (1977) 40 MLR 581.

26. Lenhoff, ‘On Interpretative Theories: A Comparative Study in Legislation’, (1949) 27 Texas L Rev 312 (cited hereaer as Lenhoffl.

27. The relationship between techniques of natural science and legal science during the enlightenment is elaborated in Herman, ‘Legislative Management of History: Notes on the Philosophical Foundation of the Civil Code’, [1979] 53 Tul L Rev 380.

28. Lenhoff, supra, p. 313, 29.

29. Ibid., at 313–314.

30. Ibid., at 315–316. Translations of lengthy passages by Jhering, Heck and other continental scholars appear in Jurisprudence of Interests (M. Schoch ed. & trans. 1948).

31. Ibid., at 317.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., at 318. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics.

34. Mayda, Francois Geny and Modern Jurisprudence (1978) 31–32 (cited hereafteras Mayda).

35. Ibid., at 7.

36. Author's translation in Levasseur, ‘Code Napoleon or Code Portalis’, (1969) 43 Tul L Rev 762 at 773.

37. Lenhoff, supra, p. 330.

38. Ibid.

39. Chloros ‘English Law and European Law: The Problem of Harmonisation’, (1972) 36 Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht 603.

40. See text accompanying note 1.

41. C. K. Allen, Law in the Making (7th edn, 1964).

42. Cooper, ‘The Common Law and the Civil Law - A Scot's View’, (1950) 63 Harv L Rev 468 at 470, See also, R. Pound, What Is the Common Law? in the Future of the Common Law (1937) 3: ‘Behind the characteristic doctrines and ideas and technique of the common law lawyer there is a significant frame of mind. It is a frame of mind which habitually looks at things in the concrete, not in the abstract… It is a frame of mind which is not ambitious to deduce the decision for the case in hand from a proposition formulated universally… It is the frame of mind behind the sure-footed Anglo-Saxon habit of dealing with things as they arise instead of anticipating them by abstract universal formulas’.

43. Portalis, ‘Discours preliminaire pronuuncé lors de la présentation du projet de la commission du gouvernement’, in 1 P. Fenet, Recveil complet de travaux préparatoires due code civil (Paris 1827) 470, translated by S. Herman in Levasseur, Code Portalis, supra, p. 769, n. 50. See the translation by T. Weir in 1 Zweigert & Kötz, An Introduction to Comparative Law at 82.

44. I Zweigert and Kötz at 269: ‘The judges saw statutes as being an evil, a necessary evil, no doubt, which disturbed the lovely harmony of the common law …’ The restrictive attitude towards statute is well documented in Plucknett, Statutes & Their Interpretation in the First half of the Fourteenth Century (1922), Thorne, ‘A Discourse upon the exposition and Understanding of Statutes (1942).

45. F. Pollock, ‘Essay upon Jurisprudence and Ethics’ 85 (1882).

46. The English judge ‘has no feeling that, if he fails to provide a remedy through the statute for the particular set of fact with which he is presented, he is failing in his duty, that he is leaving a gap in the law. There is always, apart from the statute, the common law, the law developed by the judges themselves, which will govern the legal relations of the parties’. N. S. Marsh, ‘Interpretation in a National and International Context’ (1974) 67.

47. Holmes dictum was probably borrowed from Jhering who said in Der Geist des Römischen Rechts, ‘Life is not here to be a servant of concepts, concepts are here to serve life… What will come to pass is not postulated by logic but by life’. Zweigert & Siehr, ‘Jhering's influence on the Development of the Comparative Method’, (1971) 19 AJCL 215, 225–226. I am indebted to Professor Mary Ann Glendon for the connection between Holmes' dictum and Jhering's statement.

48. About the plight of peasants in the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century, Montesquieu wrote: ‘Ownership of land is uncertain and thus the incentive for agricultural development is weakened: Neither title nor possession is good against the rulers’ caprice’. Lettres Persanes (1721) 65 (author's translation).

49. See, e.g., Hawkland, ‘Uniform Commercial Code Methodology’, 1962 U III L Forum 291.

50. Mayda, supra, p. 42, n. 37.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid., at 43–44.

55. Ibid., at 47.

56. Ibid., at 51.

57. Lenhoff, supra. p. 331, n. 29, citing Reichsgericht 26 May, 1922; [1922]Juristische Wochenschrift 1910.

58. Ibid., at 332.

59. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law (1968) 468–69, (hereinafter Dawson).

60. This paragraph paraphrases Dawson's account in Dawsm, 469–470.

61. Dawson, supra, p. 474, note 54.

62. Dawson, supra, p. 476, note 54.

63. Dawson, supra, p. 474, note 54. On abuses of judicial interpretation committed by the Nazi court, see Lowenstein, ‘Law in the Third Reich’, (1936) 45 Yale LJ (cited hereafter as Lowenstein).

64. Ibid., Lowenstein's observation is noteworthy. ‘Legal intepretation may …change the application of the old statutes without changing their textual formulation. National Socialist ‘equity’ seized upon those general clauses of the codes which already provided for equity as an integral part of positive law’. Lowenstein, supra, p. 804, note 58.

65. Dawson, ‘Unconscionable Coercion: The German Version’, (1976) 89 Haw L Rev 1041 at 1090.

66. Dawson, supra, p. 478, note 54. The damage of Nazism, viewed without benefit of historical perspective, seemed much greater. Lowenstein, supra, p. 794, note 59. But Lowenstein himself predicted that the abuses of the Third Reich would not cause permanent damage to German law. Ibid., at 814.

67. Llewellyn, The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals (1960) 518.

68. Merryman, ‘The Italian Style I: Doctrine’ (1965) 18 Stanford L Rev 39 at 62.

69. A Condillac, Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines (2nd edn 1771 Paris, (1st edn. 1746, Paris). More background on the rationalism of civil codification appeared in Herman, ‘Command Versus Purpose: The Scylla and Charybdis of the Code Drafter’, (1977) 52 Tul L Rev 115 and Herman, ‘Legislative Management of History: Notes on the philosophical Foundation of the Civil Code’, (1979) 53 Tul L Rev 380.

70. P. Sagnac, La legislation civile de la Revolution Françoise (1789-1804) 385 (1898)(author's translation).

71. Hayek, ‘Historians and the Future of Europe’, Studies in Philowphy, Politics and Economics 135 at 140.

72. Ibid., at 141.

73. Ibid.

74. Rosen, Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay (1969) 121: ‘… the ease with which Heidegger succeeded in accommodating the teaching of Being and Time to the resolute choice of Hitler and the Nazi party provides us with an essential clue to the political philosophy implicit in this ontological analysis of human existence’. Ibid.

75. According to Laurence Tribe, ‘nothing in the Supreme Court's opinion provides a satisfactory explanation of why the fetal interest should not be overriding prior to viability’. Tribe (1928) American Constitutional Law 927. The ethical dilemma of balancing incommensurables is well discussed in Ely, ‘The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v Wade’, (1973 82 Yale L J 920.

76. Quoted in Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 24 (2nd edn, 1956).

* The author gratefully acknowledges a debt to Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Boston College Law School, for suggesting the theme of this article; and to Professors Cynthia Samuel, Thomas Schoenbaum and Mr Ian Forrester for helpful criticisms of early drafts.