While common law is not the same as laws that are legislated and passed through Parliament, many laws, including those that govern people in the Commonwealth of which we are part, have been legislated through and past colonialism and into independence, and can trace their origins to common law.
Many go further back than that, to Roman law, even to a jurisprudence in 1,795 BC, the Code of Hammurabi, which governed people in Babylon, Mesopotamia, many centuries before even the Romans made rules to govern behaviour between and amongst human beings, their possessions, their leaders and the boundaries within which they lived.
The Code of Hammurabi governed business relations, and not only contracts, but the price of food. It covered all aspects of life, including conditions of work, family life and criminal action.
Did it ever strike you as strange in the 21st century, listening to the news about the current wars, either the Ukraine-Russian conflict or the 34 or so other wars going on in the Middle East, northwest Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, West Africa and so on, that the commentators speak in grave and disapproving tones about atrocities 'contrary to the laws of war' taking place?
Did you ever ask: what on earth are the laws of war?
We know about the Geneva Convention, about not targeting or killing civilian non-combatants, not targeting hospitals or shelters for civilians, medical personnel and diplomats…
There are unwritten laws as well, forbidding rape, torture of children and many others. Big, strong hard-backed soldiers still do these things; but then people break other laws as well.
Asking 'why?' in relation to human behaviour is the beginning of civilisation and the basis of philosophy.
Why do we, for example, pass laws that are impossible to keep?
What about the law we have in TT called the Occupational Safety, Health Act? I have a copy on my desk as I write. Why do we have a law to ensure the safety of people at work which specifically excludes work at home, even safety and sanitation measures, when accidents at home are so frequent and deeply damaging?
We read weekly about children dying from accidents at home. Most are never publicised, because if they were, there would be no space left for news about politics or the wars.
But it is generally recognised, right back to the Code of Hammurabi, that when someone (and I break in here to remind you that under the Companies Ordinance, industrial and corporate entities are legal 'persons') hires someone else to do work of any sort for them, they have what is called 'a duty of care' to ensure those employed are safe in doing so.
A person has a right to be able to employ another person to help them conduct their personal or commercial objectives. No one can do it alone. But along with every right there is a responsibility. And one of those responsibilities which has been legislated in TT is to ensure that such a worker is safe.
If the safety and sanitation sectio
