Legal Research

Well we always knew that Slaw had readers with great research skills. And just six hours into the Scavenger Hunt, we’ve already had some spirited submissions.

In the lead with 53 points is a lawyer, one of our keen readers in England, who must be close to a major library, given his accuracy. Two librarians, both in Western Canada are close behind with 52 (BC) and 36 (Alberta) points accordingly. We’ll see who’s ahead after the weekend

They’ve successfully identified the following:

1750 BCE The Code of Hammurabi in the Louvre

451 BCE The Law of The Twelve Tables (Rome) - original lost, but text is here and here.

348 BCE Plato?s Laws available here or on Project Gutenberg

438 438 Code of Theodosian (Rome) is here

506 Lex Romana Visigothorum, or Breviarium Alaricianum (Rome)

533 Justinian?s Institutes (Rome) are here

1215 Magna Carta, also called Magna Carta Libertatum (the Great Charter of Freedoms). Amended version of 1297 from the UK Statute Law Database and Original and translation version available at the British Library website

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights is here

We have readers who have successfully identified the following dates, but haven’t picked up the extra five points for telling us where they are physically or on the web:

624 - Tang Code
1190 - The Mishnah Torah or Ethical Conduct by Moses Maimonides
1274 - Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica
1625 - Grotius’ Laws of War and Peace
1748 - Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws
1765 - Blackstone’s Commentaries
1803 - Marbury v Madison (US Sup Ct)
1804 - Napoleonic Code
1857 - Dred Scott (US Sup Ct)

Get Googling!

We have nominations for items we hadn’t thought of:

1641 - Habeas Corpus Act
1763 - Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence
1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

For those who still want to enter, here is the revised table - can you guess any of the dates?

Send your entries (on one item or any number) by email to contest@slaw.ca and we?ll track the winners. You don?t have to have all the dates / answers to submit an entry, so keep the entries coming. At the start there are a lot of low-hanging fruit where you can easily guess the answer.