Regulation of Judicial Misconduct from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

Abstract

In a well-known chapter in the book known as the Mirror of Justices, the anonymous author recounts King Alfred's drastic solution to the problem of misbehaving judges:It is an abuse that justices and their officers who slay folk by false judgments are not destroyed like other homicides. And King Alfred in one year had forty-four judges hanged as homicides for their false judgments.Unfortunately, as Maitland has conclusively demonstrated, we cannot rely on this passage as historical evidence of Alfred's reign. Nevertheless, the passage illustrates both a problem and a solution common in the Roman and medieval periods. The problem was judicial misconduct and corruption. The solution was to impose personal liability upon miscreant judges for their behavior.

Contracting in the Presence of Judicial Agency

“…One example of Montesinos's activities which attracted particular attention in the U.S. relates to a court case over the ownership of Yanaco cha gold mine. 8 See, e.g., Hoeflich (1984).…”

The Role of the Judiciary in the Public Decision‐Making Process

“…Boudreaux and Pritchard, 1994;Collins, 2008). Some legal histories seem to suggest that judicial agency has played an important role historically (e.g., Hoeflich, 1984), while both anecdotal and survey evidence claim that it still shapes a pervasive phenomenon in developing countries nowadays (e.g., Hellman et al, 2000).…”