Rebuilding Britain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 198 pages of information about Rebuilding Britain.

Rebuilding Britain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 198 pages of information about Rebuilding Britain.

(2) The law on certain subjects should now be codified.  This is a different question from the revision of the Statute Law and the introduction of something like order into that chaos.  It is, however, probable that a general codification now would do harm, and there are strong grounds for contending that Case Law, with its capacity for growth and adaptation to new conditions as they arise and to unforeseen circumstances, is often more convenient and indeed more scientific than a code.  Criminal Law, however, at least so far as it relates to indictable offences, ought to be embodied in a definite and complete code, and in the process of codification certain amendments might be made.

(3) The law as to murder and homicide, for example, urgently requires considerable amendment.  The present state of the law classing together as murder acts of totally different character and decreeing the punishment of death for all alike is most unsatisfactory, and in some cases revolting to the moral sense.  The whole doctrine of “constructive murder” should be done away with, and only those acts treated as murder and punishable with death where the accused intended deliberately the death of his victim, and was not acting under great provocation or under the kind of mental distress or anxiety which might be reasonably supposed to affect his—­it might indicate the usual nature of such cases better to say “her”—­judgment and power of control.

There are also a number of alterations in the law relating to the devolution of property, and to personal status which ought to be made by the new Parliament at an early date.  Most of them have been suggested long ago, but as no party capital was to be made out of law reforms, such reforms have generally been neglected unless taken up by a Lord Chancellor or some other legal authority with political influence.  A few of these alterations may be enumerated.

(4) The devolution of real estate in case of intestacy should be assimilated to that of personal estate.  The present state of the law is often a great injustice, especially to women, and women will now be in a position to demand its amendment.  If a man dies intestate, leaving a wealthy son and half a dozen daughters quite unprovided for, the son takes all the real property, and the daughters may be left penniless, but if the property happens to be leasehold for 1,000 years, the daughters share equally.  The present state of the law is a survival of the time when ownership of freehold land implied personal service.

(5) Estates tail might be abolished or at least alienation of such estates made simpler.

(6) Copyhold tenure with its inconvenient incidents should be converted into freehold.

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Rebuilding Britain from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.