The Blip Blop Blog (Team Entity)

17) Equity is a shield and not a sword. As per the maxim equity is a defensive mechanism and not an offensive mechanism and an applicant seeks an equitable remedy when the applicant is deprived of something the applicant is genuinely entitled to and not otherwise for example when the doctrine of promissory estoppel is invoked. According to the doctrine, when one party makes a promise to another party and the second party relies on the promise and acts to his or her detriment than that promise is a valid promise and is a promise that is enforceable at law. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward

16) Equity will not perfect an imperfect gift. With regards to gifts unless some form of consideration has been given equity will not intervene or compel the donor or his estate to make good on a gratuitous promise. There are however certain exceptions to this maxim for example the rule in Strong v Bird (1874) – where the donor intends to pass his property to another and maintains that intention until his death but for some reason or other fails to make the transfer during his lifetime, the property becomes vested in the intended donee as the donor’s executor, and the vesting of the property is deemed to be or is seen as completing the gift. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward

The Othello Syndrome takes its name after the Shakespearean play Othello where Othello kills his beautiful wife Desdemona because he believed that she was unfaithful. In the play Desdemona never cheats on Othello but he thinks that she has and he murders her. The phrase in modern day crime is used in reference to husbands and male partners who kill their wives or partners, often in a fit of rage, because they believe them to be either unfaithful or disloyal. Does the Othello Syndrome differ from a crime of passion? The answer in short is yes. In a crime of passion the accused can kill either his or her spouse or his or her partner or the person that he or she is with. Both men and women can commit a crime of passion. The case of R v Cunningham (1981) tells us that the accused can claim that he or she committed a crime of passion in the hope of mitigating the crime or being given a lesser sentence. The defense, not that it is a recognized defense in the normal sense of th

The situation is somewhat more complicated in developing countries because despite some official figures being released, I suspect that the figures in these countries are higher than what they are or what they are perceived to be because a lot of births go unreported especially in rural areas with little or no medical facilities (95% of infants who are killed before they reach the age of 1 are not born in hospitals). Now a majority of these infants are killed by their mothers usually in the first week of birth but even if they survive the first week they are still at risk and many are killed before they reach their first birthday by either their fathers or their stepfathers. Overall the figures are high in both developed and developing countries. While a majority of the infants under the age of 1 or below the age of 1 that are killed in developing countries are female the same cannot be said for infants the same age that are killed in developed countries and in the latter th

Infanticide or infant homicide is defined as the act of killing a child within a year of the child’s birth. While it is a crime that is mostly associated to developing countries or third world countries or countries that are still lagging behind the rest of the world, it is not unusual to come across cases of infanticide in countries that do not fit the tag or label of developing countries and that tends to suggest that there are various other causes or factors that compels the offender to commit the crime other than just poverty. Technically while it is murder, because the intention to kill is or was always there, in most of these cases it is clear that the parents or parent intended to kill the child, the accused may still have a defense under diminished responsibility because the intention to kill may have been brought on by a psychiatric illness. Now it is worth remembering that diminished responsibility is different from insanity and despite what most people may or may

In R v Thornton (1996) the victim was particularly abusive towards his wife and on the day in question he threw his wife out of the house after abusing her together with a suitcase filled with her clothes. She returned later that day and tried to patch things up and the victim was even more abusive towards her. She then went into the kitchen and grabbed hold of a kitchen knife and she tried to patch things up again but her husband continued to be abusive and finally she stabbed him in the stomach with the kitchen knife and killed him. She was charged with murder and at her trial she raised the defense of diminished responsibility but she did not raise the defense of provocation. The judge however did direct the jury on provocation. The jury convicted the accused for murder and the accused appeal. Her appeal was allowed on the grounds that she suffered from a syndrome called battered women’s syndrome. From the decisions in the above cases we can come to the conclusion tha

I’m sure we’ve all wondered if it is possible to commit the perfect crime, and while the term itself belongs firmly within the pages of book or a novel and has little or no practical application or implication it is worth considering some the many possibilities, if anything, just for the sake of argument. Before we go further it is in reality difficult to commit the perfect crime because of the advances made in the field of science, in the medical field and in the field of forensics – which many people find interesting because it is essentially the field of crime solving that involves the use of modern day equipment and while the super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes relied on the powers of deduction and observation, the modern crime solver is more reliant on computers and is more at home in a lab than he or she is at a crime scene. Our accused is the battered wife. There are various moral questions that need to be raised and I think it is fairly obvious to most people that wife abus

15) Equity will not assist a volunteer. A volunteer in this context is a person who had not given consideration. In Currie v Misa (1875) it was held that consideration from the perspective of the law may consist of some right, benefit, interest or profit accruing to the party or some loss, sufferance, detriment, or responsibility incurred by the party. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward

14) Equity is equality. When there is nothing to indicate otherwise equity will divide any funds equally among all those who are entitled to it. In Burrough v Philcox the testator left the proceeds of his trust to any relative his child should nominate, and his child died without nominating any relatives and when the matter was brought before the courts it was held that the proceeds should be divided equally among all those who are entitled to it.  However, if such a division was not possible that the proceeds would not be divided because it is clearly not what the settlor would have intended see McPhail v Doulton. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward

13) Equity will not allow a trust to fail for want of a trustee – the maxim speaks for itself and as far as a trust is concerned, it takes precedence regardless of whether the settlor has appointed a trustee or not and in the absence of a trustee, whoever has legal title will be considered or regarded as a trustee or the court will appoint someone to act as trustee and in instances where the appointed trustee is dead, the court will step in to appoint a new trustee. Copyright © 2019 by Dyarne Jessica Ward