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Category: Guest Post

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Ireland’s Election

Posted by: Kelly Buchanan

The following is a guest post by Steve Clarke, Senior Foreign Law Specialist at the Law Library of Congress. Ireland employs a very complicated single transferable voting system to elect the 166 members of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas.  Under this system, in which voters rank their choices, between three and five …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

The History of the Mexican Constitution

Posted by: Francisco Macías

As a Mexican-born American, I’m always looking for occasions to celebrate.  I guess this festive nature is simply dyed-in-the-wool (or dyed-in-the-cotton, if you’re Southern-raised, as I am).  With that in mind, I wanted to write a bit about the Mexican Constitution – especially since two related holidays take place in the month of February:  Mexican …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Legal Half Time Entertainment

Posted by: Andrew Weber

The following is a guest post by Steve Clarke, Senior Foreign Law Specialist. In Custodia Legis wasn’t around last year when our fellow Library of Congress blogs, Inside Adams and In the Muse, discussed advertising and music surrounding the big game.  So I thought this year we should follow the trend and write about one …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Thirty Years Ago – The Big Move

Posted by: Kurt Carroll

The following is a guest post by Mark Strattner, Chief of our Collection Services Division. February 2, 2011 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the move of the Law Library from the Thomas Jefferson Building to its present location in the James Madison Memorial Building. On Monday February 2, 1981, the Collection Management …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

The French National School for the Judiciary

Posted by: Kelly Buchanan

The following is a guest post by Nicole Atwill, Senior Foreign Law Specialist. My husband was recently lamenting the loss of the second of his original law partners to a judicial appointment, this time to the Supreme Court of Virginia.  When I mentioned that such a scenario would be extremely rare in France, the conversation …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Coutumes of France in the Law Library of Congress

Posted by: Kurt Carroll

The following is a guest post by Dr. Meredith Shedd-Driskel, Law Curator. With the rise of feudalism in medieval France, the country had evolved into two judicial territories.  The provincial parliaments in northern France, acting as sovereign judicial bodies independent of each other and claiming independence from the king, applied droit coutumier, or legal principles …