ENGLISH JURIST

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with
the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many
Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage. In most of Continental
Europe any person who possesses a degree in law and works professionally with the law is
referred to with a word resembling jurist (e.g., Jurist, juriste, jurista, etc.).

ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES

There is no alternative word for "jurist" in English-speaking countries outside the U.S. Members
of the general public are largely unaware of the term and are likely to confuse it with "juror".
Although the word "jurist" can technically be applied to anyone having a thorough knowledge of
law, American lawyers usually use the word only to refer to a judge. The term "legal
professional" may be used for convenience. Within the legal community usage of "jurist" is
usually restricted to eminent judges or academics. Apart from this people working in law are
usually described as "lawyers" or solicitors if they are practicing law, or as belonging to a more
specific branch of the legal profession, such as barrister or advocate, judge or law professor. Less
qualified professionals may be referred to as paralegals or legal executives.

William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone KC SL (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was a British jurist, judge
and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on
the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at
Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1738. After switching
to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford
on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Following
a slow start to his career as a barrister, Blackstone became heavily involved in university
administration, becoming accountant, treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior
Bursar in 1750. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and
Warton Building, and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college. On 3 July
1753 he formally gave up his practise as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures
on English law, the first of their kind. These were massively successful, earning him a total of
£56,000 in 2011 terms, and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756,
which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works.

On 20 October 1758 Blackstone was confirmed as the first Vinerian Professor of English Law,
immediately embarking on another series of lectures and publishing a similarly successful
second treatise, titled A Discourse on the Study of the Law. With his growing fame, Blackstone
successfully returned to the bar and maintained a good practice, also securing election as Tory
Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Hindon on 30 March 1761. In February 1766 he
published the first volume of Commentaries on the Laws of England, considered his magnum
opus - the completed work earned Blackstone £1,426,000 in 2011 terms. After repeated failures,
he successfully gained appointment to the judiciary as a Justice of the Court of King's Bench on
16 February 1770, leaving to replace Edward Clive as a Justice of the Common Pleas on 25 June.
He remained in this position until his death, on 14 February 1780.

Blackstone's legacy and main work of note is his Commentaries. Designed to provide a complete
overview of English law, the four-volume treatise was repeatedly republished in 1770, 1773,
1774, 1775, 1778 and in a posthumous edition in 1783. Reprints of the first edition, intended for
practical use rather than antiquary interest, were published until the 1870s in England and Wales,
and a working version by Henry John Stephen, first published in 1841, was reprinted until after
the Second World War. Legal education in England had stalled; Blackstone's work gave the law
"at least a veneer of scholarly respectability".[1] William Searle Holdsworth, one of Blackstone's
successors as Vinerian Professor, argued that "If the Commentaries had not been written when
they were written, I think it very doubtful that [the United States], and other English speaking
countries would have so universally adopted the [common] law".[2] In the United States, copies
influenced Marshall, James Wilson, John Jay, John Adams, James Kent and Abraham Lincoln,
and the Commentaries are cited in Supreme Court decisions between 10 and 12 times a year.
Blackstone's formulation

In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone
ratio) is the principle: "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer",
expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of
England, published in the 1760s.

HISTORICAL EXPRESSIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE

The principle is much older than Blackstone's formulation, being closely tied to the presumption
of innocence in criminal trials. An early example of the principle appears in the Bible (Genesis
18:23-32),[1][2] as:

“ And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the
wicked?... That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the
wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous
within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes...

And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once:
Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. ”

The twelfth-century legal theorist Maimonides, expounding on this passage as well as Exodus
23:7 ("the innocent and righteous slay thou not") argued that executing an accused criminal on
anything less than absolute certainty would progressively lead to convictions merely "according
to the judge's caprice. Hence the Exalted One has shut this door" against the use of presumptive
evidence, for "it is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a
single innocent one to death."[1][3][4]

Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae (c. 1470) states that "one would much rather
that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person
should be condemned and suffer capitally." Similarly, on 3 October 1692, while decrying the
Salem witch trials, Increase Mather adapted Fortescue's statement and wrote, "It were better that
Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned."

Other commentators have echoed the principle; Benjamin Franklin stated it as, "it is better [one
hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".[5] But more
authoritarian personalities are supposed to have taken the opposite view; Bismarck is believed to
have stated that "it is better that ten innocent men suffer than one guilty man escape;"[1] and Pol
Pot[6] and Wolfgang Schäuble[7] have made similar remarks. The latter said in the context of
crime prediction (not crime punishment) that he believes that it is not better to let ten terrorist
attacks happen than to try to hinder one possibly innocent person to conduct one.

LEGISLATION

Legislation (or "statutory law") is law which has been promulgated (or "enacted") by a
legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it. (Another source of law is judge-
made law or case law.) Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and
may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under consideration to distinguish it
from other business. Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to proscribe,
to provide (funds), to sanction, to grant, to declare or to restrict.

Under the Westminster system, an item of primary legislation is known as an Act of Parliament
after enactment.

Legislation is usually proposed by a member of the legislature (e.g. a member of Congress or

Parliament), or by the executive, whereupon it is debated by members of the legislature and is
often amended before passage. Most large legislatures enact only a small fraction of the bills
proposed in a given session.[1] Whether a given bill will be proposed and enter into force is
generally a matter of the legislative priorities of government.

Legislation is regarded as one of the three main functions of government, which are often
distinguished under the doctrine of the separation of powers. Those who have the formal power
to create legislation are known as legislators; a judicial branch of government will have the
formal power to interpret legislation (see statutory interpretation); the executive branch of
government can act only within the powers and limits set by the law.

Alternate means of law-making

The function and procedures are primarily the responsibility of the legislature. However, there
are situations where legislation is made by other bodies or means, such as when constitutional
law or secondary legislation is enacted. Such other forms of law-making include referendums,
constitutional conventions, orders-in-council or regulations. The term legislation is sometimes
used to include these situations, or the term primary legislation may be used to exclude these
other forms.