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Pólemos 2/2008
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Equity and the Law: the Concept of Equity in English Literature and Law
Within the comparative field of law and literature, the research, which involves both scholars in the field of English literature and scholars in the field of comparative law, will concentrate on a particular theme that is the concept of ‘equity’.
Equity has been discussed at least since Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Judgement according to equity has been practised for at least two thousand two hundred years, as far as we know since the Roman Praetor. In civil law countries, throughout Europe and in particular in the Latin-German cultural area, the law-equity divide focuses on the way judges should decide, with procedural repercussions, but within the same jurisdiction, whereas in Anglo-Saxon countries the historical-legal roots of the dichotomy between common law and equity have given rise to separate courts and a gap between jurisdictions. This historical separation has often led to consider judgement according to equity as conceived and implemented in conflict with judgement according to law, erroneously exacerbating a law-equity antithesis. Law’s defenders hold that individuals must keep to fixed, reliable rules in order to attain the right decision; equity’s defenders argue that rigid rules can hardly account for the diversity of social situations, specific historical contexts and perceived justice.
This theme is re-echoed throughout English literature, which records ethical and legal problems, both reflecting and stimulating juridical culture, acting as a mirror of the juridical issues and discourses of the times. The literary field, with its fictional discourses, gives evidence of how English literature has always been concerned with the ethical debate, the problem of equity and a quest for shared ethics.
On June 17, 2008, AIDEL – Italian Association of Law and Literature – was founded in Turin. The association is ruled by article 36 and following articles of the Italian Civil Code. … read more