While it is no doubt possible to subsume many kinds of inquiry under the head of historical jurisprudence one should certainly distinguish between two rather different kinds. First there is the kind that takes a particular legal notion or idea as it becomes crystallised at some point in a country’s legal history and traces its subsequent history in legal thought, investigating its diffusion and influence and assessing its continuing utility. Such an inquiry is concerned only with the facts in the sense of the ascertainment of what has actually happened. It is in no degree speculative; nor does it seek to investigate the relationship between social conditions and legal notions or rely upon any particular theory of social evolution.

The incorporation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution Act, 1982, marks a decisive development in the legal entrenchment of human rights in Canada. This contemporary experiment in the protection of fundamental rights by the constitutional limitation of legislative power, and in particular the social priorities established by the Charter and the delicate balancing of interests and values inherent in its provisions, offer useful insights into the viability of mechanisms associated with an enforceable bill of rights within the framework of a modern federal state. Of even greater interest, in the context of multi-racial and multi-religious communities in the modern Commonwealth, is the recent body of case law in the shaping of which Canadian judges have shown perception in imparting effectiveness to guarantees embodied in the Charter, while being acutely aware of the risk of exacerbating tensions with the legislative and administrative organs of government.

Sterilisation (vasectomy in the case of the male and tubal ligation or laporoscopy or other variants in the case of the female) is a common method of contraception. It is perceived as having none of the practical and aesthetic disadvantages of ‘mechanical’ methods and none of the health risks associated with oral contraception. It seems to be generally assumed that these procedures are one hundred per cent effective. Indeed, they probably are the most effective methods available, but there are at least two possible sources of failure. First, the procedure may not be performed correctly, though in the case of vasectomy this does not present a very serious problem if, as is normal vasectomy practice in this country, fertility tests are carried out over a fairly extended period before the patient is advised that he may rely upon the operation.

Twelve years ago, in Brutus u Cozens, the House of Lords held that the meaning of an ordinary word of the English language was not a matter of law for the judge, but a question off act for the jury. The way was opened to the argument that in the definition of criminal offences, the metes and bounds of criminal liability were themselves no longer matters of law, but matters off act for the jury. This would allow a judge, when giving his direction, to read a short sentence or two, and leave the jurors to form a largely untutored view of whether an offence had been committed. No matter that different juries would reach different conclusions on the same facts. No matter that there would be little opportunity for an appellate court to correct what it perceived to be an incorrect verdict.

The law relating to markets illustrates the extent to which the English legal system bears the indelible stamp of its historical origins. Despite a mass of legislation during the last one hundred and fifty years, the common law of markets has retained much of its significance. Although aspects of the common law dating from the Middle Ages are singularly ill-adapted to contemporary social and economic conditions pressure on parliamentary time and the rigid application of the doctrine ofstare decisis combine to preserve this distinctly anachronistic area of the law.

On 20 February 1982 a baby girl was born in France to Jean-Pierre and Marie-Hélène C. They determined to call their child Manhattan, after an eponymous popular song that had enjoyed currency in the year they were married. The registrar (officier de l’état civil), however, declined to register the child under that name and, when the parents subsequently refused to select any others, the procureur de la République applied to the French civil courts to give the child a forename. The tribunal de grande instance gave the infant its parents’ forenames, refusing to grant the latters’ request to register the child under the name of Manhattan.