Law Ammusement
Surreal law facts
The truth is always stranger than fiction.
The oldest court in the world
The Water Court (Tribunal de Las Aquas) has been sitting in the Cathedral of Valentia, Spain since 961, every Thursday at 11 AM, to resolve farm border, irrigation and other water-related disputes between local farmers.
The seven members are elected by local farmers and the hearings are held without oaths, written records or lawyers. The Court sits on a circular velvet couch to listen and render judgment in the local Valencia dialect. The Court was created by Moorish farmers.
Now mostly a tourist attraction, the Court dutifully sits once a week and if no one shows up with a dispute to be resolved, the Court adjourns until the following week.
31-year sentence for a joke
Francis Seldon (the French called him François) was imprisoned in the Bastille, Paris (pictured), for 31 years just because he had plastered a small poster criticizing his Jesuit teachers for holding the king above God.
He was only 16 at the time and a student at a Jesuit College in Clermont when the king came to visit, in 1674. The poster had embarrassed the king. Even though Seldon was from a rich Irish family, sent to France to get an education, the king issued a lettre de cachet and the young boy was arrested and secreted to the Bastille in Paris. Louis XIV (1638-1715) later issued a further lettre de cachet, this time a life sentence to the brash young Irishman, while Seldon's heart-broken parents were told that the child had just disappeared. Seldon was transferred to another prison (îles Sainte-Marguerite) until 1691 when he was returned to the Bastille. In 1705, Seldon was freed after a Jesuit priest took up his cause in exchange for 98% of Seldon's assets (Seldon did not know he was rich). The king was finally convinced to free Seldon.
Seldon returned to Ireland broken physically but wealthy beyond his wildest imagination. His parents had died, heartbroken, but he was heir to the family fortune which had been wisely administered in his absence. He belatedly honoured his contract with Jesuits.
Estate willed to clothe snowmen
Madame de la Bresse was an otherwise unremarkable French eccentric until she died in 1876.
Then, her heirs discovered her will and then wished they hadn't because she left her entire fortune of 125K Francs to properly clothed - for the sake of la décence - Paris snowmen.
Her will was contested, the heirs arguing that it was obviously the work of an insane person, but the judge who heard the case upheld the Will.
Source: www.duhaime.org.
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalResources/LawFun/LawArticle-559/LAWmazing-Volume-2.aspx
