Heikki Pihlajamäki

What Makes a Student Group Successful? Student-Student and Student-Teacher Interaction in a Problem-Based Learning Environment

This study investigated student-student and teacher-student interaction in a problem-based course and looked at study success in relation to group dynamics and approaches to studying. Data for this study were provided by 31 law students who were enrolled in a course in legal history at the University of Helsinki in February 2001. The students were divided into three small groups that were tutored by one teacher. Both the students and the teacher were interviewed. The interaction between the students and their teacher, and the group dynamics of each subgroup, were observed during the tutor sessions. The results showed that the student groups were very different from each other in terms of study success, group dynamics and communication between the group members. One group achieved significantly higher grades than the other two groups. There was only one clear difference between the three groups. The interviews and observations showed that the students in the best group participated more evenly and actively in the discussions than students in the other two groups.

From the judge's arbitrium to the legality principle: legislation as a source of law in criminal trials

The legality principle characterizes all western legal systems, and it has become an integral part of the Western rule of law and the international human rights law. The principle dates back to enlightened jurists such as Cesare Beccaria and to social contract thinkers such as Charles de Secondat de Montesquieu, according to whom judges were to act only as the mouthpiece of the statutory law. Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach, the inventor of the famous maxim nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege, developed these thoughts further. The emergence of the legality principle links closely to the teachings on the division of powers. The studies of this volume cover most of Europe from England, Italy and Spain to Sweden, Russia and England, and both the South and North American continents. In most parts of Europe, the nineteenth-century criminal law reforms form an integral part of the »liberal« agenda. These changes took place, however, at different times in different parts of the Western world, and for slightly different reasons. Comparative legal history shows, furthermore, that the roots of the principle date much further back in history than the eighteenth century. Before the formulation of the legality principle, written statutes already played a significant role in the criminal law in many parts of the Western world. The articles of the volume, written by the foremost experts on comparative legal history, demonstrate that the attitudes and practices toward written statutes as sources of criminal law varied greatly from one region to another. In most parts of the European continent judicial arbitration was carefully defined in legal scholarship (Italy, France), whereas in some regions written law played an important role from early on (Sweden). Although the nineteenth century was fundamental in shaping the legality principle, in some countries its breakthrough remained even then far from complete (Russia, the United States).

Law Books During the Transition from Late-Medieval to Early-Modern Legal Scholarship

The second chapter is devoted to the transitional period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during which printed books came to replace manuscripts. Books discussed in this chapter had an important manuscript tradition in earlier centuries. In continental Europe, legal incunabula and early-sixteenth-century imprints included mainly the fundamental compilations of civil (Azo, Accursius, Bartolus, Baldus, Tartagni) and canon (Gratian, Hostiensis, Durantis, Panormitanus) law, setting out the curriculum of law studies, in which the text of the compilation was often surrounded by a comprehensive system of glosses, commentaries, summae, and collections of learned opinions produced for political authorities or private litigants in specific cases. But there were also some important works on customary law (e.g. the Saxon Mirror in German territories, Bracton and Littleton in England, Boutillier in France).

The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture

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Legal Books in the Early Modern Western World

price are net prices, subject to local VAT. Prices indicated with * include VAT for books; the €(D) includes 7% for Germany, the €(A) includes 10% for Austria. Prices indicated with ** include VAT for electronic products; 19% for Germany, 20% for Austria. All prices exclusive of carriage charges. Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. S. Dauchy, G. Martyn, A. Musson, H. Pihlajamäki, A. Wijffels (Eds.) The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture

Law Books in the Modern Western World: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Adorned with several illuminated title pages, frontispieces and portraits of authors, an overview is given of the most important types of legal books during the Early Modern Era: commentaries, case reports, consilia, treatises… The introduction describes the role of printing centres and especially universities in the ‘booming’ legal book industry, and it shortly describes the different ‘schools’ and how these combined centuries old legal corpora iuris with new challenges. 84 particular books illustrate the most important evolutions in the formal presentation of legal books, in the use of Latin or the vernacular, in the influence of Church and State, and with regard to their legal content.

Lay participation in modern law: a comparative historical analysis

53 books, published between 1801 and 1950, illustrate the evolution of legal science in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. The industrial revolution improved manufacturing methods and distribution dramatically. Some legal works became veritable bestsellers, running to various editions, and very often several translations, inspiring revolutionaries and legislators. Evolving National States and codifications had a major impact on legal doctrine. Different ‘schools’, like the German Historical School or the American Realist School, took very different views on the role of law and legal construction.

Self-, peer- and teacher-assessment of student essays

In recent decades, the trial jury has become one of the prime exports of American legal culture. Since the 1970s, countries as diverse as Spain, Russia, the Dominican Republic and South Korea have established criminal trial juries in one form or another. Some of these versions have been influenced not only by the American model, but also by others, such as the German Schöffengericht (mixed court). The new jury systems share a democratic rhetoric, the willingness to involve ordinary citizens in the workings of the courts to represent ‘the people’. Oddly this rise in interest in importing lay participation has coincided with a decline at its most recent point of origin, the United States. The vast majority of civil matters are resolved through settlement or arbitration; most recently, the rate of jury trials in federal civil cases in the United States stood at less than 1%. As for American criminal trials, plea bargaining has practically replaced trial by jury: only about 2% of federal criminal cases now result in a jury trial. This issue of Comparative Legal History explores the fate of lay judges historically and comparatively in different parts of the Western world. How do we define lay participation? This issue concentrates on Anglo-American juries and