THE COMMON LAW IS DIFFERENT: TEN ILLUSTRATIONS.

If amazement is the mother of science, the continental lawyer's amazement when he is confronted with the English common law must be one of the most powerful factors in the scientific study of the law (to which, after all, the Goodhart professorship is devoted). I shall therefore begin with the presentation of ten legal institutions which exemplify the different approach by English and continental law and, in the course of so doing, present some historical explanations or at least considerations. Many more examples could have been selected, but, whether under the influence of the decimal system or because of reminiscences of the decalogue, ten seemed a fair and not absolutely fortuitous number. As befits a legal historian, I shall be concerned with the historic or classic common law without, however, ignoring altogether various recent changes that seem to be narrowing the gap between the common law and the ‘Roman-Germanic family’. Some readers may themselves be amazed at this amazement: is it not natural that every country has its own laws? In the United States every state enjoys and even guards its own laws, and in some cases even a code of laws! To this the reply can be made that the difference between England and the rest of Europe (including to a large extent even Scotland) goes much deeper than the differences among the continental countries and the states in North America: it is the whole approach to the law and the very way of legal thinking which is different, and not just the laws on divorce or the maximum speed on the highways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]