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The US constitution... | 168 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
The US Wanted To Be Different (And They Did It)
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 07:39 PM EDT
Very much so. The 3 areas unique to each other was an amazing concept to
counter (at the time) the problem of the House of Commons, House of Lords, and
then the Monarch. It was 3 parts, just sequential, not independent. Funnily
enough, the UK system has drifted far in practice to the terrible state it used
to be (King George III was mad but it turned out a good thing he 'gave away' so
much control), and now there's a 'dampening' effect with the House of Lords
slowing down more of the wilder excesses of the lower House.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The US constitution...
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 06 2012 @ 01:35 AM EDT
The US constitution is a product of its time and place drafted by wealthy white
males

It is very much a document of the Enlightenment that in many ways broke with the
feudal social order of its time, based as it was on rational thought; as defined
by white land- and slave owners.

It may be among the best examples on efforts to craft a just society but that
doesn't make it neither a gospel nor perfect (just ask the native Americans).

Don't forget, it took less than three generations before a Civil war was needed
to settle matters.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Magna Carta
Authored by: Ian Al on Saturday, October 06 2012 @ 06:41 AM EDT
The Magna Carta introduced a written and widely published common law that applied to monarchy, nobility and all subjects. The US Constitution, in part, calls for the same rights that developed in the centuries after the Magna Carta such as trial by a jury formed from citizens, a single framework of law that applied to every citizen, law written by elected representatives of the citizenry and habeas corpus. The adversarial process, secrecy of jury deliberations and the primacy of the jury verdict came out of the English law system from the sixteenth century onwards.

The US Constitution goes much further than any English or British charters in establishing tenets for commerce, citizens' rights, including free speech, and governance. Such governance principles such as the life of an elected parliament have to be drawn from the letter of the law in England (,NI and Wales. There is a different legal system in Scotland).

The letter of English law can be changed by Parliament. The letter of the US Constitution can be changed by Congress, but that is almost impossible, in practice. Amendments have, of course, been made, but that is somewhat harder than making changes via the 'English' Parliament.

The US courts still use the English common law as precedent.

Supreme Court, Parker v. Flook:
This is also the teaching of our landmark decision in O'Reilly v. Morse. In that case the Court rejected Samuel Morse's broad claim covering any use of electromagnetism for printing intelligible signs, characters, or letters at a distance.

In reviewing earlier cases applying the rule that a scientific principle cannot be patented, the Court placed particular emphasis on the English case of Neilson v. Harford, Web. Pat. Cases 295, 371 (1844), which involved the circulation of heated air in a furnace system to increase its efficiency. The English court rejected the argument that the patent merely covered the principle that furnace temperature could be increased by injecting hot air, instead of cold into the furnace. That court's explanation of its decision was relied on by this Court in Morse:
Before the US Constitution, the US courts were an extension of the English court system. John Adams, who became US President after George Washington presided over the institution of the Constitution, started as a lawyer in the English court system within North America.

As I hear it, John Adams had a lot to do with the writing of the Constitution and would have reflected the judicial system in which he had faith, in the tenets of the Constitution. It would certainly appear, on the evidence, that English courts can provide precedence to US courts when the tenets of the English court and the Constitution are in concert.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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