Failures of American Methods of Lawmaking in Historical and Comparative Perspectives

James R. Maxeiner

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781107198159
• eBook ISBN: 9781108195836
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Comparative Law
• Index: Law

In this book, James R. Maxeiner takes on the challenge of demonstrating that historically American law makers did consider a statutory methodology as part of formulating laws. In the nineteenth century, when the people wanted laws they could understand, lawyers inflicted judge-made, statute-destroying, common law on them. Maxeiner offers the cure for common law, in the form of sensible statute law. Building on this historical evidence, Maxeiner shows how rule-making in civil law jurisdictions in other countries makes for a far more equitable legal system. Sensible statute laws fit together: one statute governs, as opposed to several laws that even lawyers have trouble disentangling. In a statute law system, lawmakers make laws for the common good in sensible procedures, and judges apply sensible laws and do not make them. This book shows how such a system works in Germany and how it would be a solution for the American legal system as well.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Table of contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Summary
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Historical Part: Americans’ Longing for Laws for the People
• Part III Comparative Part: Ways to a Government of Laws
• Appendix The Foreign Law Controversy and the Fate of Civil Law Scholarship in American Law Schools
• Index