Saturday 21 May 2011

Sport means Wild Animals????

Salam from Melbourne City,
A boring sunday morning. I grap one book and read it. I found this provoking thought that worth of sharing.

A good collection of classics of English Legal History on Game Law as selected by David S. Berkowitz and Samuel E. Thorne named  A Treatise on the Game Laws. Published in 1979 by Garland Publishing (N.Y & London). The treatise is divided into 2 parts where the first part relating to Game and the latter is about fisheries. Here is how the word 'game' and 'law' intersect which evolved gradually as sports law. The starts sound funny but the end of the story is great and meritorious.

Game according to this treatise is a term derived from the Saxon but interestingly, in the legal acceptation, it is a species of wild animals. Why? All wild animals afford sport to their pursuers. However, it would be difficult to state as a general rule what kind of animals are game. Some hunters just go for rabbit. Can we treat rabbit as a game? Therefore, where the term game is mentioned in a statute, it is necessary to attend to the object of the legislature in passing the particular provision.

Here is how the word 'wild animals' make sense. Most writers assert the soverign has the sole property in game. According to Sir William Blackstone, the sole property of all the game in England is vested in the king alone. How about the land owner, who have a local property in game and a right to take it whilst upon their own land. They are not, unless by licence or grant by the king. Interesting to note that after the Conquest of 1063, according to Lord Coke the king cannot raise a free chase or park or forest over any man's ground without his consent. It is only a declaratory law to secure the former right.

And here the law comes in. The Common law subject any person to any action of trespass for entering the land of another, in order to search for or pursue game. Meaning to say, no one can sport, except in his own land, without being guilty of an infraction of the law (See Black Commentaries. 419 - Lord Raym). More complicated where the statute restraints the right of every owner of land to kill game even on his own estate at particular seasons of the year or by particular ways, and those who fail are subjected to penalties for sporting.

The definition goes dense and the legal meaning becomes more convoluted. How? First, this wild animals may frequently change their hiding estate. Bird fly away and rabbit run away. These are no longer a property of a man or his actual possession. Then the theory of a qualified but not an absolute property comes in, which need further detail explanation. Two, when the liberty to kill game is confined to persons whose fortune and rank may justify the application of their time to the sports of the field. Then, with respect to the required qualification, Sir William Scott observed that the law must proceed upon some settled  provisions. Third, when the moral issue exist among the community, the policy prevents husband or gentlemen from going for the game. It is argued that those being frequently indulges in the sports of the field is said rarely becomes an industrious member of the society.  

Thus, the book illustrated the ways how to deal with these issues. Since then, the need of the specific law as to game must be regulated, principally preserve the game in a particular places:
- to the persons who are qualified or prohibited from killing them;
- to the time and to the mode of killing them;
- to the disposal of them when killed or taken;
- to the persons authorised to interfere in the preservation of game;
- to the criminal punishment and penalties for the infraction of the law;
- to the civil remedies for injuries.

Above all, it is all about 'wild animals' that being hunted which later described as 'sport'.


Jawapan kepada persoalan FB.

Perundangan sukan bermula dengan aktiviti nak tangkap arnab..percaya atau tidak??

Semasa pemerintahan Queen Elizabert, dalam kes Rex v Yaites, telah diputuskan oleh Lord Raym bahawa 'Rabbit is not in legal acceptation as game, unless expressly named'. Tetapi arnab ni telah dianggap sebagai satu aset 'more valuable property than game'. Dengan itu, bermula la satu peraturan yang menyatakan bahawa siapa yang membunuh arnab (khususnya orang biasa) akan dianggap sebagai satu kesalahan sivil.

Ada beberapa lagi kes undang-undang berhubung tangkap dan bunuh arnab, Bellew v Langdon - 'the killing of them is not justifiable'; Haddesden v Grisel - 'the commoner might destroy rabbits but he may not kill the conies'; Sandford v Havil - 'the action of trespass'.