On Sun, May 16, 2004 at 09:17:03PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > Um, I'm not a lawyer and this is outside even my
> > layman's-understanding of the law, but I'm certain I've seen cases
> > proceed in the courts of location X under the laws of location Y,
> > because a violation of a contract happened in X -- or the parties or
> > tort are somehow in X, such that it has jurisdiction, but the contract
> > insists on the laws of Y.
> >
> > So this doesn't force it to happen in a particular place, it just
> > encourages the courts to virtualize their judges.
>
> Do you have a citation? I don't see how this could possibly work. I
> could see that a tort happens in place X that is decided in a court in
> place Y, but I don't see how you're going to get courts in one place
> to familiarize themselves with the laws of another place.
AIUI, if there is a question of law, then the presiding judge will
submit a query ("Is it a violation of Title 17 paragraph xxx to
publish a program which bypasses a technical measure designed to
prevent copying, when this action has substantial non-infringing uses
and is the only method by which these non-infringing uses can be
accomplished?" - I just made that up) to some suitable court in the
relevant jurisdiction. They will rule on the point of law, and the
presiding judge will continue based on their ruling. The query is
typically revised until both counsels agree on the wording, and takes
the form of a "yes/no" question.
Questions of fact are the same in every jurisdiction. Questions of
legal process are handled according to the jurisdiction in which the
case is heard, and are not affected by choice-of-law
provisions. Sentencing is the judge's personal decision within the
boundaries laid down by the relevant law, as always; they are not
obliged to emulate a judge from the named jurisdiction.
It is the responsibility of counsel to familiarise themselves with the
relevant laws and ensure that relevant queries are raised. This is an
instance of the "hire a good lawyer" principle.
All of this is, of course, subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in
which the case is heard. They may prohibit or place constraints on
choice-of-law or choice-of-venue provisions, and the details will
probably vary quite a bit in some places.
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ |
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