Criminal Law and Historical Focus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Criminal Law and Historical Focus - Essay Example (Landau, 2002) In presenting England's criminal law, Blackstone a common lawyer of earlier generation, chose not to highlight settled procedural distinctions and arcane terms, but instead he invoked a distinctive kind of legal wrong he identified as "public" in nature. The terms crime and criminal law, while enjoying wide linguistic currency, were not always the part of technical vocabulary of the law. In the medieval period, English law was explicitly differentiating between civil and criminal materials. And as is immediately disclosed by the titles of such works as Lord Kames "History of the criminal law" (1758) and William Eden's "Principles of penal law" (1771), eighteenth-century jurists certainly supposed there existed a general category of law that might serve as the object of their scholarly attention. English law, according to a familiar complaint, simply lacked much by way of system or coherent organization, particularly as compared with Roman law, which hitherto dominated university law studies and which set the relevant standard for juristic elegance. "It was thought impracticable to bring the Laws of England into a Method", explained by one of Blackstone's eighteenth-century precursors, "and therefore a Prejudice was taken up against the study of our Laws, even by Men of Parts and Learning". On this basis, English law along with the Canadian law was unable to become an object of rational learning, and instead had to be mastered through the practical, craft-like techniques of legal apprenticeship. Blackstone, as a lawyer was confident of the English law's credentials as a rational system, but the efforts of other lawyers were not considered "failure" to bring changes in the system after negotiations. Law Reform Law reform was supposed to be the one and only asset, exclusively the preserve of lawyers, and Bentham's combination of the wisdom of the reformer and the craft of the lawyer recognized its potential to divide the legal profession. The common lawyer's innate respect for existing institutions and his appreciation of the subtleties of the status quo not only made novelty in the early years of entering into the criminology, but also it particularize the concept of jurisdiction in the early years of reform, as an object of suspicion. The means and scope of amendment were a further cause for division, even after its need was established. There was a disturbing element of self-examination in law reform to which some lawyers found it difficult to respond with enthusiasm. The status quo would always find friends in influential positions, particularly in respect of criminal law reform amongst the judiciary. Law - A Profession towards Criminal Trial Process As the pace and scale of law reform increased it became an intense preoccupation of the legal profession and for the eighteenth century lawyers, acted as a charm to enter into such a jurisdiciary profession. It was the dominant theme of professional literature of that period that lasted the debate over the role of counsel and advocacy in the criminal trial, for a longer period of time and consideration in this work, could be traced in parliamentary debates, select committee minutes, the evidence and reports of the Criminal Law Commissioners, periodical and professional journals, biographies and other professional lite