C.J.H. Jansen

Accidental Harm Under (Roman) Civil Law

A leading idea under Roman private law and nearly all European legal systems is that an owner has to bear the risk of an accidental loss (casus). An accident is a circumstance for which a third party cannot be blamed (culpa or fault). A person suffering damage from an accident had to bear that damage himself. This idea has been subject to attack throughout history. Every once in a while, it is said that ‘bad luck must be righted’ (‘pech moet weg’). This position has not become the prevailing viewpoint among lawyers. Although it does not seem very realistic, ‘bad luck must be righted’ did form the basis of social security policies of the Netherlands and some other western countries after World War II: social security ‘from womb to tomb’. The scope of social security benefits has been reduced in many countries in the last decades of the twentieth century, because the costs were no longer affordable. The idea that a owner has to bear the risk of casus has withstood the test of time quite well. That accidental harm must be borne by the one suffering it, is legally and morally justifiable.

Judicial Injustice? The “Review Case” before the Dutch Supreme Court in 1942

Although the concept of a “wicked legal system” has become well-known, it is not clear how to define such a system or which actors are crucial in bringing it about. This paper discusses from a historical, international, and jurisprudential perspective the Dutch Supreme Court’s 1942 Review Case, in which the Court notoriously grants measures issued by the Nazi occupier the status of Dutch legislation. Although this small tale of the relationship between law, politics, and morality is little known outside the Netherlands, it raises most relevant questions about the constitutional role of a domestic judiciary during foreign occupation and about the ethos of the judiciary beyond the mere obedience of civil servants.