Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Vol. 3: Nova Scotia

Charlotte Neff is an associate professor of Law and Justice at
Laurentian University.

This book contains 10 articles on various aspects of Nova Scotia’s
legal history from 1713 to 1919, including the legal system, criminal
law, family law, and law and the economy. The authors include two
practicing lawyers, but most are academics: one in law, five historians
with a legal background, a political scientist with a legal background,
and a historian. The articles by and large represent pioneering work in
the examination of a variety of primary legal sources, including
legislative records (such as acts, bills, debates, and journals),
reported court cases, court records, and prison records. In most cases
there is little reliance on secondary sources, as few exist.

A variety of themes are pursued, including the influence of other
jurisdictions on legal developments in Nova Scotia; the dynamics of law
reform; the policy-making role of the courts; the social-control model
of law; the influence of the women’s rights movement; and the
influence of the demands of economic development. The essays are
refreshingly free from attempts to fit historical facts to preconceived
theories, such as feminist interpretations or the social-control model.
Instead, the authors recognize the variety of influences at work in
shaping legal developments, and (as stated in the introduction) on
balance demonstrate “that a subtle and complex mixture of English,
American, and indigenous influences was at work in shaping and reshaping
[Nova Scotia’s] legal order from the earliest times until at least
1900.”