Ricardo, on Roscoe Pound----
A reference: The Roscoe Pound Foundation was established in 1956 by trial lawyers to
honor and build upon the work of Roscoe Pound, Dean of the Harvard Law School from
1916-1936.
A book: opengroup.com
A quote: Quoted from Roscoe Pound,
The causes of popular dissatisfaction with administration of justice, 29
A.B.A.R. 395, 397 (1906).
"The most important and most constaant cause of dissatisfaction with all law
at all times is to be found in the necessarily mechanical operation of legal
rules. This is one of the penalties of uniformity. Legal history shows an
oscillation between wide judicial discrection on the one hand and strict
confinement of the magistrate by minute and detailed rules upon the other
hand. The law has always ended in a compromise, in the middle course
between wide discretion and over-minute legislation. In reaching this
middle ground, some sacrifices of flexibility of application to particular
cases is inevitable. In consequence, the adjustment of the relations of man
and man according to these rules will of necessity appear more or less
arbitrary and more or less in conflict with the ethical notions of individuals".
On the Bill of Rights---- Madison originally opposed them on much the same grounds, and relented only because of ratification politics. In the end, however, he decided that they were a good idea, because they constituted an additional check on the potential for tyranny by the majority...
I hope you had a good trip, and look forward to your comments after catching up... |
