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Acquisitive prescription and fundamental rights
- University of Toronto Law Journal
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 66, Number 4, Fall 2016
- pp. 472-512
- Article
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Various seventeenth-century parliamentarians resorted to the concept of acquisitive prescription when denouncing irresponsible use of the royal prerogative. Often, the concept was invoked to convey nothing more than that a custom had existed since time immemorial. Yet sometimes the concept was used in its legal sense – to denote the acquisition of a right (as if someone with the authority to grant that right had done so) by virtue of some instance of long and uninterrupted enjoyment over a period of time. This article considers the application of acquisitive prescription, a doctrine rooted in the medieval law of land obligations, in Stuart constitutional discourse.