The Tribunal de las Aguas : A Minor Jurisprudence, Not Jurisprudentially Minor
2008; Routledge; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1525/lal.2008.20.1.89
ISSN1541-2601
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Legal Studies and Society
ResumoAbstractThis Article examines Spain’s Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia as a minor jurisprudence, a unique form of justice, and transparent and communal due process. I couch my study in the history of the court and contrast it with the Inquisition tribunal that shared its geographic jurisdiction. I argue the Tribunal exemplifies Goodrich’s version of a minor jurisprudence, but for the Tribunal’s ability to survive monarchical control and remain true to its community.Keywords: Tribunal de las Aguasminor jurisprudenceValenciaSpainalternative dispute resolutionInquisitionwatermonarchytribunalregionalismdue processjurisprudence“huerta,”irrigationPeter Goodrich“Las siete partidas,”Moorscritical legal studiescanalCatholic ChurchVicente Blasco Ibáñez Notes* The author extends her sincerest thanks to Professor Penelope Pether, whose introduction to Critical Legal Studies and minor jurisprudences was both insightful and inspirational.1. Blaise Pascal. repr. Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago (1982). Pensées, no. 312 (1670), trans. J.M. Dent & Sons, London (1931).2. Peter Goodrich, “Introduction: Towards a Minor Jurisprudence,” in Law in the Courts of Love: Literature and Other Minor Jurisprudences (New York: Routledge Publishing, 1996), 2 [Google Scholar].3. Id. at 3.4. Id.5. Id. at 2.6. Thomas F. Glick, Irrigation and Society in Medieval Valencia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1970), 188. [Google Scholar] Glick notes the court celebrated its millennium in 1960. See United Nations Educational Science, Cultural Organization, “Who Pays the Piper? Who Calls the Tune?” UNESCO Courier, Feb. 1999, available at http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_02/uk/dossier/intro21.htm.7. See Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love, supra note 2 at 3.8. Peter Goodrich, Reading the Law (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 22. [Google Scholar]9. See Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love, supra note 2 at 3.10. To see a 360-degree view of the portal and court in session, visit: http://valencia.arounder.com/category/fullscreen/ES000008920.html (last visited December 3, 2006).11. Scenario adapted from http://www.iac2006.com/IISL.asp?sm=3_8 (last visited December 4, 2006).12. Michael C. Meyer, Water in the Hispanic Southwest: A Social and Legal History 1550–1850 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984), 20. [Google Scholar]13. Id.14. Id.15. Id. at 117.16. Las siete partidas del sabio rey don Alfonso 4 vols. (Madrid, 1789). King Alfonso X, El Sabio (the knowing), codification is known as the Siete partidas. See Meyer, Water, supra note 12 at 21; see also John Thomas Vance, The Background of Hispanic-American Law: Legal Sources and Juridical Literature of Spain (New York: Central Book Company, 1943), 94 [Google Scholar] (noting disagreement among scholars regarding exact dates of codification).17. Meyer, supra note 12 at 117.18. Id.19. Id. (citing Partida 3, Título 28, Leyes 3 and 16).20. Meyer, supra note 12 at 20.21. Id. at 21.22. See Cristina Segura Graíño. “Sistemas y Aprovisionamientos Hidraulicos e Historia Social” in Agua y Sistemas Hidráulicos en la Edad Media Hispana, Cristina Segura Graíño, ed., (Madrid: Asociación Cultural Al-Mudayana, 2003), 11 [Google Scholar] (my translation).23. Id. (my translation).24. Id. at 13.25. Id. at 14–15. Water sellers would deliver water to homes, alleviating the women’s hard work of going to the fountain to obtain the water personally. But women remained the water supplier of familial water.26. Id. at 17. “The justification is simple … the capital improvements that had already been constructed necessarily to bring the water to the city or to the home, and the expenses that supported the maintenance of these infrastructures and the quality of supplied liquid, required payment for these services.” Id. (my translation).27. Meyer, supra note 12 at 21. Feudal lords increased their suzerainty, officials their authority, and kings their imperiality through taxation. See id.28. Meyer, supra note 12 at 120. This tradition was deeply engrained in medieval Spanish water law. Id. (citing Partida 3, Título 28, Ley 3).29. Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love, supra note 2 at 8.30. William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 321. [Google Scholar]31. Id. at xii.32. Stephen Haliczer, Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) 10–11 [Google Scholar].33. Glick, supra note 6 at 47.34. Id.35. Monter, supra note 30 at 127–28.36. Id.37. Vance, supra note 16 at 27.38. Id.39. Id.40. Id.41. Id.42. Id. at 184.43. Id.44. Id.45. Id. at 220.46. Meyer, supra note 12 at 106.47. Vance, supra note 16 at 1.48. Haliczer, supra note 32 at 11.49. Id. at 11–12.50. Id. at 11.51. Id. at 13.52. Id.53. Id. at 14.54. Meyer, supra note 12 at 106.55. Id. at 107.56. Vance, supra note 16 at 202.57. Id. at 220. The charter was granted at an informal assembly of community leaders; although the original text has been lost, most of the provisions of the customary laws have survived. Id. at 221.58. Id. at 221.59. Id. at 221–22.60. Id. at 222.61. Id.62. Id. at 223.63. Meyer, supra note 12 at 122.64. Id. at 149 (citing Partida 1, Título 2, Ley 1).65. Id. (citing Partida 3, Título 31, Ley 8).66. Id. at 182.67. Id.68. See generally, Emilio Olmos Herguedas, “El agua en la norma escrita: Una compilación bajmedievales castellanas,” in Cristina Segura Graíño, ed., Agua y Sistemas Hidráulicos en la Edad Media Hispana (Madrid: Asociación Cultural Al-Mudayana, 2003), 27–86. [Google Scholar]69. Id. at 43.70. Id. at 44 (my translation).71. Id. at 81.72. Peter Atkins, Ian Simmons, and Brian Roberts, People, Land and Time: An Historical Introduction to the Relations Between Landscape, Culture and Environment (New York: Arnold, 1998), 37. [Google Scholar]73. Id. at 37.74. Id.75. Id.76. Id.77. Id.78. Id.79. Id.80. Glick, supra note 6 at 149.81. Id.82. Id. at 182.83. Atkins, supra note 72 at 37.84. Haliczer, supra note 32 at 9.85. Id.86. Id. at 10.87. Id. at 11.88. Id. at 12. The inquisitors were first appointed by King Ferdinand.89. Glick, supra note 6 at 11.90. Atkins, supra note 72 at 38.91. Id.92. Id.93. Id.94. Id.95. Glick, supra note 6 at 98.96. Id.97. Id. at 96.98. Id. at 100.99. Id. at 83.100. Id. at 83–84.101. Id. at 84.102. Id. at 88 (1443 and 1486). “The proportion of charges brought by community officials to those brought by irrigators was approximately two to one… .” Id.103. Id. at 86.104. Id.105. Id. at 87.106. Atkins, supra note 72 at 38.107. Glick, supra note 6 at 188.108. The true name of the Tribunal de las Aguas is the “tribunal de los Acequieros de la Vega de Valencia” a naming privilege of the donor of the first canals. Víctor Fairén Guíllen, El Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia y Su Proceso: Oralidad, Concentración, Rapidez, Economia (Valencia: Caja de Ahorros, 1978), 107 [Google Scholar].109. Glick, supra note 6 at 68.110. See, for example, id. at 68.111. Robert W. Gordon, “New Developments in Legal Theory,” in David Kairys, ed., The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique, 2nd ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), 422. [Google Scholar]112. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, The Cabin (New York: Knopf, 1917), 87–90 (originally published as La barraca [1898]). [Google Scholar]113. See United Nations Educational Science, Cultural Organization, “Who Pays the Piper? Who Calls the Tune?” UNESCO Courier, Feb. 1999, available at http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_02/uk/dossier/intro21.htm.114. Guillén, supra note 108 at 143.115. Id. at 144.116. Id.117. Id.118. Glick, supra note 108 at 187 (quoting Richard Ford, A Handbook for Travellers in Spain, 2 vols. [London, 1845], 430–31) [Google Scholar].119. Id. at 188.120. Id.121. Ibáñez, supra note 112 at 92–93.122. Glick, supra note 6 at 68–66.123. Guillén, supra note 108 at 273.124. Glick, supra note 6 at 68–66.125. Haliczer, supra note 32 at 111.126. Id. at 112. A survey conducted in 1666 shows that 72 percent of inquisitors had attended one of three most prestigious universities. Id.127. Id. at 60.128. Goodrich, Reading the Law, supra note 8 at 34.129. Guíllen, supra note 108 at 49.130. Id. at 68–66 (my translation).131. Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed., Bryan A. Garner, ed., s.v. “due process.”132. Ibáñez, supra note 112 at 96.133. Guíllen, supra note 108 at 131.134. Goodrich, Reading the Law, supra note 8 at 21.135. Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love, supra note 2 at 19 (citing Edward Stillingfleet). Goodrich is explaining the development of common and ecclesiastical law.136. Id. at 19.137. Haliczer, supra note 32 at 112.138. Id. at 60.139. Id. at 14–16.140. Id. at 18, 17–19.141. Id. at 362.142. Id. at 362.143. Id. at 18.144. Id. at 19.145. Id.146. Id.147. Id.148. Id.149. Id. at 20.150. Id. at 347.151. Id.152. Id.153. Id. at 380.154. Id. at 388.155. Id.156. Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love , supra note 2 at 3.157. Id. at 20.158. See Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia, available at http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunal_de_las_Aguas_de_Valencia (last visited December 4, 2006).
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