601:567. ROMAN LAW (2 or 3)
Hyland
The common law is in the minority. Outside of the English-speaking world, most countries have private law systems based on the Roman civil law. This course offers an opportunity for common law students to learn something about how jurists in that other system think when they confront legal problems. A meaningful encounter with the civil law is an essential element of a successful life in the law_not only because common lawyers are, with increasing frequency, involved in cases governed by the law of a civilian jurisdiction, but also because the civilians know something essential about the law, something that we in the common law tend to ignore.
Except for the codes, very little from civilian jurisdictions has been translated. It therefore proves to be almost impossible to enter into the world of the civilian jurist unless you speak one of the civilian languages fluently. Roman law is important in this context because many important Roman legal texts have been translated. We will use one of the two exquisite casebooks on Roman law put together by Bruce Frier, one on tort law (delict), the other on family law, both easily available in paperback.
In other words, this course is not about an historical institution. It is about the law today, an attempt to learn something about how we in the common law think about the law by contrasting it to how the law has been studied for a millennium by others. As a result, there are no pre- requisites for this course_neither a knowledge of Latin, nor knowledge about the history of Rome, nor even an acquaintance with Antiquity.
Hyland
The common law is in the minority. Outside of the English-speaking world, most countries have private law systems based on the Roman civil law. This course offers an opportunity for common law students to learn something about how jurists in that other system think when they confront legal problems. A meaningful encounter with the civil law is an essential element of a successful life in the law_not only because common lawyers are, with increasing frequency, involved in cases governed by the law of a civilian jurisdiction, but also because the civilians know something essential about the law, something that we in the common law tend to ignore.
Except for the codes, very little from civilian jurisdictions has been translated. It therefore proves to be almost impossible to enter into the world of the civilian jurist unless you speak one of the civilian languages fluently. Roman law is important in this context because many important Roman legal texts have been translated. We will use one of the two exquisite casebooks on Roman law put together by Bruce Frier, one on tort law (delict), the other on family law, both easily available in paperback.
In other words, this course is not about an historical institution. It is about the law today, an attempt to learn something about how we in the common law think about the law by contrasting it to how the law has been studied for a millennium by others. As a result, there are no pre- requisites for this course_neither a knowledge of Latin, nor knowledge about the history of Rome, nor even an acquaintance with Antiquity.