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 Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian. .
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Once I had to dismiss a lawyer, and as I sat in his firm's office, filling in a release form, I saw this notice in fine print: the lawyer was to pay me $2. For the fun of it, I drew the firm's attention to the fact that their lawyer had to pay me $2. They were upset. Why?
These lawyers did not even know that the release form came from colonial America of more than 200 years ago, and therefore it came from England.
An English baron ÒretainedÓ a lawyer, who thus became a member of his Òretinue,Ó his servant. In order to leave his master, he had to pay him, and $2 was a substantial sum in those times in ÒBritish America.Ó Yes, the release form was English.
Even more surprising to me was an American lawyer's ignorance that Habeas corpus, whereby a lawyer demands the release of his client from prison (Habeas corpus . . . means ÒYou must have the body of . . .Ó), had existed in England for centuries before American independence.
The English political & legal system goes to the beginning of the second millennium. According to Pavel Vinogradev, a Russian who was knighted as Sir Paul for his studies of the English political & legal history, trial by jury had originated in the first millennium!
But while America has borrowed from England so much politically and legally useful, America has borrowed it with much antiquated nonsense. The English barons could ÒretainÓ lawyers for the same reasons they could ÒretainÓ cooks, butlers, or bodyguards. But what about not the English barons, but an American citizen who lives on $500 a month, while a lawsuit may cost millions of dollars in lawyers' fees?
In the 20th century the independent America has responded to this difficulty with two inventions.
One is the small claims court. While he was in Russia an American gentleman picked up for me the $400 a newspaper owed me for my column, but did not pass the money to me. I applied to a small claims court. No lawyers. The defendant did not appear. The hearing took about ten minutes. The judge (a young man) wrote a decision (the defendant was to pay me $400 with some additions) and asked me to give him the Russian newspaper with my column as a personal souvenir, which I did, of course.
The other American invention is the contingency basis. A food store in our neighborhood left a trap door to its cellar open and I stumbled over it, with some superficial injuries to my leg. A contingency lawyer is not paid a cent as a contingency fee. He or she (it was she) received $5,000 from the food store (determined to avoid the court case!), retained 20% as her fee, and passed $4,000 to me. All together the ÒcaseÓ took about five minutes of my time.
After these two personal experiences of mine (and I trust only my own personal experiences), I assumed that England had grabbed at the two inventions of the independent America. No! They were met by arrogant scorn. What does not come from medieval England is legally and politically worthless, frivolous or wrong.
Despite its two inventions, the U.S. legal system needs a reform: read ÒJustice Overruled,Ó published by Judge Burton S. Katz (former prosecutor and superior court judge) in 1997 (Warner Books). But such books, to say nothing of a legal reform, are inconceivable in England, and had not America been independent, they would have been equally inconceivable in the United States.
The museum of medieval history is nice. But living human beings cannot live and defend their rights in the museum of medieval history England means to be. Nor are all human beings the 13th-century barons with their retinues or 21st-century billionaires. The future belongs to those like Judge Burton, and not to worshipers of medieval England.
Lev Navrozov's (navlev@cloud9.net] new book is available on-line at www.levnavrozov.com. To request an outline of the book, send an e-mail to webmaster@levnavrozov.com.