/library/oar/handle/123456789/70830 Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:41:57 GMT 2025-12-24T11:41:57Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/69615 Title: The Law Journal : Volume 2 : Issue 1 Abstract: The Law Journal was, at the time, the first and only local legal publication on our island. Its existence was indicative of a lacuna, one which academics would not fill. It took a group of law students, balancing their studies and other commitments, to organise such a publication. Wed, 01 Jan 1947 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/69615 1947-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/69614 Title: Editorial [The Law Journal : Volume 2 : Issue 1] Abstract: IN welcoming the long-awaited return of Self-Government we cannot but recall the words of His Honour the Chief Justice in the inaugural address of the Law Society: "It is the hearty and disinterested co-operation of the rising generation, to which you belong, that will make the grant of Self-Government a success especially in its experimental stages''. That these words were taken to heart is evidenced by the large number of past law students who are taking part in the political awakening. The importance of the lawyer's part in the future conduct of Self-Government cannot be overestimated for, as Lord Macmillan points out, "the law provides the citizen with a mechanism of life whereby all the incidents of his relations with his fellow beings are regulated and the element of friction eliminated by definite and familiar adjustments". It is true that as Froude observes, ''our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them" and that the law as framed and administered by fallible human beings must always fall short of the ideal standard of justice, but, on the other hand it is equally true that it is the lawyer's privilege, as it is his duty, to promote that kind of order in the community which results from the formulation and administration of just laws. In taking an active part under Self-Government let our legislators bear in mind Lecky's warning that "Legislation is only really successful when it is in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Law and statesmen for the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are like the hands of the watch which move obedient to the hidden machinery behind.'' Description: This item has been retyped from the original and pagination will differ from the original. Wed, 01 Jan 1947 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/69614 1947-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/69613 Title: Sir Michelangelo Refalo Abstract: Born, like one of his eminent predecessors, Sir Adrian Dingli, in Gozo on the 1st March, 1876, Michelangelo Refalo, son of Vincenzo, a Notary Public by profession, and of Agatha nee Cachia, passed the first years of 'his life-in the bosom of a family where the proper education of the children was a paramount duty. At the age of 12, his father sent him to the Archiepiscopal Seminary of that Island, where he was educated under the direction of those experienced and unrivalled teachers, - the Jesuit Fathers. Wed, 01 Jan 1947 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/69613 1947-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/69612 Title: The English Constitution and the future Abstract: THE present age is one of transition, of great, often violent, upheaval in practically every sphere of human activity; and the legal-political sphere is no exception. Therefore it would not be amiss to pause for a moment and try to see how this remarkable, this eminently human, phenomenon, the English Constitution, is faring in the midst of these changes. The success of this brilliant work of improvisation (for such it is), modified and extended through the centuries as occasion demanded, has been a mystery to foreigners, who have tried to imitate it but have discovered that it is a plant that grows only on English soil. There are, I think, two important reasons why the English Constitution has been on the whole a successful experiment in government. The first is that it is mainly "the product of lawyers, of persons, therefore, with a practical working knowledge of the law. The corresponding institutions of other nations, perhaps more intellectual than the English, have often been the creation not so much of lawyers, as of abstract philosophers and politically ambitious generals, and have wholly or partially broken down in consequence. The other reason is, of course, England's unique geographical position which has enabled her to put her system into practice without outside interference. Had it been otherwise, the lawyer would have been helpless, as international lawyers have reluctantly realised when confronted with superior force. Wed, 01 Jan 1947 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/69612 1947-01-01T00:00:00Z