Lessons of Everyday Law/Le Droit Du Quotidien

by Macdonald, Roderick Alexander

• ISBN13: 9780889119130
• ISBN10: 0889119139
• Edition: Bilingual
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-09-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

Problems of discovering and representing reality, of making and transcribing rules into linguistic and other symbolic forms, of fact-finding and interpretation routinely confront policy-makers and lawyers. But, in a sense, everyone is a lawyer because ordinary human interaction is saturated with norms and normative processes, institutions, structures, and cultures. Everyday life thus provides an unlimited supply of images and events that raise some of the most complex issues of legal theory. In Lessons of Everyday Law Roderick MacDonald shows that stories of everyday law are revealing not just for what they can teach about policy-making and law reform but as accounts of practices internal to the little legal systems of everyday life. The norms governing ordinary encounters reveal how human beings make sense of their relationships with each other and translate these relationships into discrete, culturally determined legal forms and values. Most of these small-scale norms can also be found in larger normative settings, such as the official legal system of the political state and the multiple regimes of international law. Lessons of Everyday Law suggests that the stream of influence between the micro-law of everyday life and the macro-law of the world legal order flows both ways. Attending to the normative dimensions of everyday human interaction enriches our understanding of the forms, aspirations, and limits of law -- wherever it is found.

Author Biography

Roderick Macdonald is the F. R. Scott Professor of Constitutional and Public Law at McGill University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction
Everyday Life and Everyday Law	3	(10)
Suggestions for Further Reading	13	(6)
PART ONE: THE ARCHITECTURE OF LAW
Introduction	17	(2)
Law Day and Chocolate Bunnies	19	(4)
Street-hockey, Skateboarding and Responsive Law	23	(5)
Is Law about Issuing Orders or Making Rules?	28	(5)
If it Goes without Saying, Does it Go Better when You Say it?	33	(5)
Heads I Win...	38	(5)
Suggestions for Further Reading	43	(12)
PART TWO: RULES
Introduction	53	(2)
Sometimes It's Better just to Fix the Dock	55	(4)
50th Anniversaries and Families	59	(5)
Measure for Measure	64	(5)
Legal Fictions - The Law's ``Little White Lies''	69	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	73	(10)
PART THREE: DECISIONS
Introduction	81	(2)
But Everyone Else Is Allowed to	83	(4)
It's just a Legal Technicality	87	(4)
Let's just Stick to the Rules	91	(4)
It's not Fair, He Hit Me First!	95	(4)
I Was Rolling on the Floor and it Fell in!	99	(5)
Suggestions for Further Reading	104	(11)
PART FOUR: CONCEPTS AND INSTITUTIONS
Introduction	113	(2)
What You See Depends on Where You Stand	115	(5)
Who Do You Think You Are Anyway?	120	(5)
Can We Go to a Garage Sale this Weekend?	125	(5)
Old Guards	130	(5)
Suggestions for Further Reading	135