Legal Definitions - reception

In legal terms, reception refers to the process by which one jurisdiction (such as a country, state, or territory) formally adopts or incorporates the laws, legal principles, or even an entire legal system from another jurisdiction. This adoption can be partial, involving specific statutes or concepts, or comprehensive, laying the foundation for a new legal framework.

• Example 1: Adoption of Common Law Systems

  When many former British colonies, such as Canada or Australia, gained independence, they largely retained and continued to apply the English common law system as the basis for their own legal frameworks. While they developed their own statutes and judicial precedents over time, the fundamental principles and structure of their legal systems were inherited from England.

  This illustrates reception because these new nations formally adopted and integrated the established legal traditions and judicial reasoning of England into their own sovereign legal systems, rather than creating an entirely new system from scratch.

• Example 2: Incorporating International Treaties

  A country decides to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and subsequently enacts domestic legislation that mirrors or directly implements the provisions of this international treaty regarding maritime boundaries, navigation rights, and resource exploitation.

  This demonstrates reception as the country is taking a set of international legal rules and principles (from UNCLOS) and formally incorporating them into its own national law, making them enforceable within its domestic courts and by its government agencies.

• Example 3: Adopting Model Laws for Specific Reforms

  After observing the effectiveness of a particular "no-fault" accident compensation scheme implemented in New Zealand, a Canadian province studies its structure and then drafts and passes its own provincial legislation that incorporates similar principles for compensating accident victims, aiming to streamline claims and reduce litigation.

  This is an example of reception because the Canadian province is adopting a specific legal reform and its underlying principles that originated and proved successful in a different jurisdiction (New Zealand), integrating those concepts into its own provincial legal framework to address a similar societal issue.