This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... causes: 1. Such attempts, being founded on a principle of general application, throw a doubt upon the validity of other laws than those which are directly attacked. 2. The annulling of a law has a retroactive operation, inasmuch as the acts done under it are also annulled; hence, unless the legislature should ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 edition. Excerpt: ... causes: 1. Such attempts, being founded on a principle of general application, throw a doubt upon the validity of other laws than those which are directly attacked. 2. The annulling of a law has a retroactive operation, inasmuch as the acts done under it are also annulled; hence, unless the legislature should interfere specially, a law is rendered ab initio void, by which people have regulated their conduct, and upon which prudent men have founded reasonable expectations. 3. This mode of proceeding is equally applicable to good and to bad laws; since the defects in the form of the law are wholly unconnected with its practical operation. In general it is desirable that all rules (even though inexpedient) which have been long acquiesced in by common usage, and which have been believed to be invested with the legal sanction, should be considered by the courts and by the government to have a binding force, until repealed by a competent authority; and in most countries the courts have acted upon this principle. It may be added, that the necessary vagueness of the rules respecting the portion of the law of the mother country, which is in force in a new colony (for example, of the rule of the English law, that a new colony acquires as much of the law of England as is suited to its condition), confers a very extensive power upon the courts of such a dependency, and invests them with legislative rather than judicial functions. It may, moreover, happen that the disposition of the courts to question the validity of the existing laws may be increased by a rivalry between lawyers of the dominant country and native lawyers in the dependency, or even by a more ambitious attempt of the judges to supersede the subordinate But as a matter of fact the legislature...
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