Comment on Arnolds Binder’s paper “Early Development of Arrest as a Concept and Process ( ERCES Online Quarterly Review Vol 1 No 4)

By Jukka Kekkonen

Professor in legal history and Roman law

Dean of the Faculty of law at the University of Helsinki

Arnold Binder has written an excellent study on early development of arrest as a concept and process. He traces the roots of arrest from medieval England. Actually it is not possible to point out a single root as Magna Charta in the case of the Process of arrest.  In broadest meaning of terms arrest arouse in English law  between 5 th and 13th Centuries.

Binder puts the development elegantly in context. Especially important feature behind the early development of arrest was the strenghtening power of the king, the royal authority starting from William I. Increased jurisdiction powers of the royal court were signs of this development.

Is this respect me might in my view also talk about the early development of modern state, which Harold Berman describes (Law and Revolution I-II) in a very interesting - albeit controversial - manner.

Binders brilliant article forms a good basis for comparisons of legal development in states and areas where royal power took frist stpes towards modernity eexceptionbally early.