Part D Flashcards
Private property and criminal law
Ideas in private property and criminal law were about the extreme penalties for burglaries and petty theft in the 1700s - death penalty or commutation.
Also discussed tax dodgers vs dole bludgers, and socially constructed deviance
What theories could analyse private property and criminal law?
Natural law theory:
Could be seen as immoral in some respects to send someone to death. Many poor people were stealing for survival
CLS:
CLS would see the rich people with property making laws to stop people stealing their own property or killing them if they did.
Women as property
Women as property discussed how married women used to be treated as no less than another object that her husband owned. He was able to beat her as he wished etc. she lost all legal status once she married.
Theories and women as property
Feminism:
Feminists would point out how unequal the society was in which a woman was property. They would also point out that although the laws have changed, the old ways still shine through - a rapist has gotten away with only 6 months in jail in some cases. in marriage the woman takes the mans last name which feminist theorists would point out.
Legal realism also springs to mind in the judges’s who were and are likely all middle - upper class white men biases.
Tikanga:
Women as property very much opposes tikangas values and status of women as sacred.
Intellectual property
In intellectual property AIDS was a main case study. Drugs for AIDS too expensive for developing countries. Emergency licenses available for desperate times, but even these disadvantage developing countries.
Thailand: used emergency license to make drugs, was put on a piracy for breaching patent laws watch-list.
Theories and intellectual property
TWAIL:
Disadvantaging developing countries. Thailand vs USA emergency license.
Water as property
Bradford v Pickles:
Pickles had the city’s water supply under his property and dammed it off because he could. Legal issue was whether it was ok for him to use his own property maliciously, found it was ok.
Bolivia:
Water was privatised in order for a bank to give a loan. Water privatisation company had shares owned by the bank. Cost over 6 months pay just to link households up to the water supply, and it didn’t reach some areas. Protests etc. until the government said they would terminate the contract in some way or another.
Theories and water as property
Natural law:
Natural law would say that the law in which it was ok for Pickles to prevent a whole city from getting water, a basic human right and necessity, is wrong and therefore is not valid law.
Positivism:
Would say that morality and law are separate and water is no exception; he had the right to stop the city from getting water as it was his property.
TWAIL:
TWAIL would see in the Bolivia case an evil corporation disadvantaging developing countries.
