REVIEWS
| Date | 01 May 1973 |
| Published date | 01 May 1973 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1973.tb01370.x |
REVIEWS
LEGAL PROBLEMS
OF
AN
ENLARGED EUROPEAN
COMMUNITY.
Edited
by
M.
E.
BATHURST,
K.
R.
SIMMONDS,
N.
MARCH
HUNNINGS
AND
JANE WELCH.
[London: Stevens
&
Sons.
869
pp.
(inc.
index).
26-75.]
BEconrxNo
a
member of the European Communities will have profound effects
upon this country. These effects will range from limitations upon the
sovereignty of Parliament and restrictions upon the judicial competence of
the House of Lords, to the permitted size
of
lorries on the roads and the
ingredients allowed in chewing gum.
In Dublin 1970,
a
conference was organised to consider what would be
the main legal problems for the applicant countries. That conference was
highly successful
:
the present volume contains the twenty-nine background
papers. These deal not only with the problems as they will affect
this
country,
Ireland and Scandinavia
:
they also deal with problems that will be common
for the existing members and the new members. These include
:
the problem of
transnational companies
:
the problem of insuring goods over their journey by
land-sea-land; the difficulties of selling goods that are to be transported by
air, when, as
so
often happens, the goods arrive at their destination before
their documents of title.
Reading these papers, one becomes acutely aware of the insular character
of many of our present assumptions. The standard of repair of lorries in
South Italy; the extent of the subsidy of French Railways; the rights of
shareholders in Luxembourg have never
in
the past troubled British minds.
This hook shows that in
a
unified Europe, when Italian lorries thunder through
rural
England, the state of their brakes, and the legally permitted blackness
of their exhaust, will be
our
concern. The subsidies of railways affect com-
petition, and the rights of shareholders may attract
or
deter investment.
Further, now this country
is
a
member of the Communities, the vogue word
“harmonisation” will lead to changes in our company law-and indeed it
already has; it
will
affect our law of insolvency, our law of patents and our
law
of social security. One might even be excused the treasonable thought that one
day French law ought not in English courts
to
be merely a qriestion
of
fact.
This book discusses relevant problems. Professor Pescatorc,
a
judge of
the European
Court,
discusses whether references to that court under
Article 177 should be made where the municipal court finds the meaning of
Community law entirely clear,
or
made even when the European Court
has
already interpreted the relevant provision. Will the Court’s interpretation in
r?
reference from Italy he binding upon municipal courts in this country?
The
problem of passing legislation
so
as
to comply with the directives that
order such legislation,
is
a
problem for the draftsmen and for Parliament.
It
is
valuable to have somewhere to turn to discover how the existing member
States have faced this, and to discover, for example, how Belgian courts have
dealt with
a
challenge of Belgian law on the grounds that the ‘parent directive
was itself invalid.
The British Institute of International and Comparative law is to be
thanked for producing this volume of such wide scope.
D.
G.
VALENTINE.
821
822
THE
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
VOL.
36
INFORMATION
AND
ADVICE SERVICES. By ROSALIND
BROOKE.
Occasional Papers in
Social
Administration
No.
46.
[London
:
G.
Bell
&
Sons. 1972.
182
pp.
€2.25.1
MISS
Brooke has produced the most comprehensive account of available
information and advice services to date. In particular, she has carried out
a
field survey of the network of Citizens’ Advice Bureaux around the country
showing
a
wider variation in financing, staffing, administration and function
than might at first be thought. The debate at national CAB level on future
developments reflects the modest expansion of local authority advice services
in the aftermath of
the
Scebohm Report, especially in the field of housing
and family advice. Many services are run on shoe-string budgets with part-
time
or
voluntary workers. Their staff are often confused about the extent
to
wliicli their role oirght to be of an advocacy nature rattier than purely
advisory. In any evciit,
the
function of the service may be formed by the
lack
of
additional services to which clients may be referred. Miss Brooke
has
garnered
a
wealth of information and statistics on the information and
advice services in tmnsition. She charts the growing demand for legal ser-
vices
and
the mushrooming of community organisations offering legal and
other advice. The provisions of the Legal Advice and Assistance Act
1972
may help to involve lawyers more in the problems of the
poor,
but
the
need
for advice and information is likely to be centred on CAB and local authority
services. Miss Brooke’s book seems to point overwhelmingly for
a
more
comprehensive financial and organisational structure for these services
to
meet
the dcmands upon tlicm.
C.
GLABSER
MARRIAGE
STABILITY, DIVORCE
AND
THE
LAW.
By
MAX
RHEINBTEIN.
[Chicago and
London:
The University
of
Chicago Press. 1972.
471
pp.
27.90.1
THIS
is a remarkable and fascinating book. It is the fruit of many years’
intensive comparative study of the law of divorce as
it
derives from, relates
to and affects the culture in which
it
is
an element. The book makes use of
a virtually world-wide literature and the fruits
of
scholarly activity con-
ducted on an international scale
md
an inter-disGplinary footing with the
author always at the centre. The genesis of the work was the failure of the
Interprofessional Commission on Marriage and Divorce, set
up
by the
American Bar Association about twenty-five years ago, to draft
a
model
divorce law which (hopefully, as they say) would control divorce rates and
“protect the American family from threatened ruin.” It is easy enough to say
now that the problem had been misconceived. The members of the Commission,
indeed, soon rearmed that they needed solid fact as
a
basis
for
sound
law.
That is how it
all
started. Professor Rlieinstein planted
a
research acorn
at Chicago, whence
grew
this oak.
The author conducts an elaborate, multi-faceted examination of divorce
in society.
His
purpose
is
to contribute to an answer to a number of related
questions. Here are some
of
those questions, briefly framed.
Is
there
a
causal relationship between the form
(or,
indeed, the existence) of the law
of divorce and the incidence of marriage breakdown? How does the form
of that law affect the divorce rate?
How
is the contrast between the statutory
law
of divorce (“the law in the books”) and the practical operation of the
law (“the law in action”) to be explained? And justified? What is the
relevance of the ideological and cultural contexts in which, as the study
passes from country to country, these questions fall
to
be answered? If
a
strict law of divorce is ineffective to control marriage breakdown, then what
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