Common Law - HABEAS CORPUS

lingue

Common Law

Common law is a juridical system developed in England.

It's a consuetudinary right produced by law courts and applied in Anglo-Saxon countries.

(Now I explay what I sayed)

It is called Common Law because it became a juridical system common to all the England after its political unity, it was officially intruduced by Henry II ( even if the wor 151h79b d appeared for the first time under Edward I), who ( Henry II) sent his judges to every England's corner to spread this right.

It was influenced by past rulers as Saxon and Danes.

Common Law's mechanism is very simple, all the judgments issued by law courts are regularly registered in two bodies of law: the first called Records and the other which is two centuries recenter called Reports; and these judgments make up the right on which the law courts will base in the future to take decisions about similar trials.

A trial usually goes on in this way: the case is presented, and whereas an italian judge would use the penal code to find the paragraph which describes the crime and the relative penalty, English judge starts a long work of research in the archives to find the descriptions of trials which deal similar cases happened in the past and in this way he can obtain the principles and norms to conduct the trial. Only after this operation the judge presents the commited actions, the extenuating and aggravating circumstances to the jurymen who will issue a verdict.

But Common Law is only one of the three basis on which English right is set up, in fact there are also the Statutes and Equity.

Sometimes could happen that an appeal had been submited against a judgment, so special Courts of Justice made up by King's Lord Chancellor could couch different verdicts, also these were registered in a body of law called Equity which was united with Common Law in 1873.

But the previous judges could have made an evident mistake of judgment, so the Parliament could issue special laws which have the power to rescind and modify the tradition.

In fact strange situations can happen, for exemple in this century during a trial, the accused, mister Abraham Thornton, got up from his chair and went to his accuser and cuff him with a glove. He wanted to make a duel because according to an old medieval custom, the accused could challenge the accuser to a duel before God's judgment and if Thornton had won he would have been free.

So the accuser being afraid to challenge Thornton, who was an excellent swordsman, retired the accusation and mister Thornton was free.

Only after this fact the Parliament approved of a law which deleted from legal system this custom.

HABEAS CORPUS

In the English Right it's the order made by a judge to present in front of him anyone is imprisoned indicating which is his guilt and if this guilt doesn't require the arrest he can be free, but if it requires the arrest the prisoner can have the provisional freedom paying a sum of money.The Habeas Corpus was already refered in the Magna Charta Libertatum and in Petition of Rights.