Property, Liberty and Obligation

Résumé du livre

This thesis considers the response of the wartime judiciary to the sudden alteration in the social and economic context in which they had to operate. It does so through a consideration of three fundamental concepts of English law - liberty, property and obligation. The first chapter reviews the judicial response to the curtailment of the liberty of alien and British subjects, and how the court discharged its traditional role as the guardian of individual liberty. The second considers the treatment of enemy alien trade and business, and the protection accorded to enemy property and contractual rights, and reviews the extent to which common law developments reflected the anti-German sentiment which gripped the country from 1915 onwards. -- In the third and fourth chapters, the protection afforded to property and contractual rights of British subjects when the state encroached upon these for wartime purposes is considered. The third chapter considers the use of the prerogative as a legal basis for requisitioning real property, ships and contractual rights concerning the same, and the manner in which the "taking', and any right to compensation, were conceptualised by the courts. The fourth considers the judicial response to acts of expropriation based on the authority of statute, and concludes with a review of the circumstances in which the state was prepared to grant compensation under the Indemnity Act 1920 to persons who had suffered interference with their property, business or contractual rights as a result of the war.