Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T03:23:45.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

British Perceptions of Ottoman Judicial Reform in the Late Nineteenth Century: Some Preliminary Insights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Avi Rubin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans founded a new court system, the Nizamiye courts, as part of an empire-wide ambitious project of judicial and administrative reform, which involved legal transplantation from the French model. The institutional evolution of these courts was completed with elaborate legislation introduced in 1879. This article explores British consular and diplomatic accounts dispatched in the immediate aftermath of the 1879 reforms in an attempt to assess the value of these reports for understanding the passage of Ottoman law to modernity. Comparison of British accounts with relevant Ottoman sources and recent research reveals that British consuls and diplomats produced distorted representations of Ottoman judicial reform, exhibiting lack of faith in the effectiveness of these reforms. Misrepresentation resulted from ignorance about the nature of reformed Ottoman law, prejudice, and concerns about the effect of these reforms on the ability of British consuls to interfere with Ottoman court proceedings.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , Fall 2012 , pp. 991 - 1012
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Agmon, Iris. 2006. Family and Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Ahmad, Feroz. 2000. Ottoman Perceptions of the Capitulations, 1800–1914. Journal of Islamic Studies 11 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
Akiba, Jun. 2005. From Kadi to Naib: Reorganization of the Ottoman Sharia Judiciary in the Tanzimat Period. In Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West, ed. Imber, Colin and Kiyotaki, Keiko, 43–60. London: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Atıf, Kuyucaklızade Mehmet. 1909. Mecelle-yi ahkam-i adliyeden kavaid-i külliye şerhi. Istanbul: Mahmut Bey.Google Scholar
Auchterlonie, Paul. 2001. From the Eastern Question to the Death of General Gordon: Representations of the Middle East in the Victorian Periodical Press, 1876–1885. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28 (1): 5–24.Google Scholar
Aydın, Mehmet Akif. 2005. Türk Hukuk Tarihi. Istanbul: Düzey.Google Scholar
Bailey, Frank E. 1940. The Economics of British Foreign Policy, 1825–50. Journal of Modern History 12 (4): 449–84.Google Scholar
Baker, Anne. 1996. A Question of Honour: The Life of Lieutenant General Valentine Baker Pasha. London: Leo Cooper.Google Scholar
Berridge, Geoff. 2009. British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present: A Study in the Evolution of the Resident Embassy. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Bingöl, Sedat. 2004. Tanzimat Devrinde Osmanlı'da Yargı Reformu: Nizamiye Mahkemelerinin Kuruluşu ve İşleyisi 1840–1876. Eskişehir: Anadolu Üniversitesi.Google Scholar
Blackbourne, David. 2003. History of Germany 1780–1918: The Long Nineteenth Century. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brun, Natan. 2008. Shoftim u-Mishpetanim be Erets Yisrael: Ben Kushta li-Yerushalayim, 1900–1930. Jerusalem: Magnes.Google Scholar
Byrd, Peter. 1972. Regional and Functional Specialisation in the British Consular Service. Journal of Contemporary History 7 (1): 127–45.Google Scholar
Demirel, Fatmagül. 2007. Adliye Nezareti: Kuruluşu ve Faaliyetleri (1876–1914). Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi.Google Scholar
Ekinci, Ekrem Buğra. 2004. Osmanlı Mahkemeleri. Istanbul: Arı Sanat.Google Scholar
Ergene, Boğaç. 2003. Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744). Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Fahmy, Khaled. 1998. The Era of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, 1805–1848. In The Cambridge History of Egypt: Modern Egypt from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 2, ed. Daly, M. W., 139–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feyzioğlu, Hamiyet Sezer, and Kılıç, Selda. 2005. Tanzimat Arifesinde Kadılık- Naiplik Kurumu. Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 24 (38): 31–53.Google Scholar
Findley, Carter V. 1980. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Findley, Carter V. 2005. The Turks in World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gavison, Ruth. 1985. Abolition of the Mejelle: Custom and the Fiqe Principles. Mishpatim 14: 325–66 (Hebrew).Google Scholar
Gerber, Haim. 1985. Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890–1914. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz.Google Scholar
Gerber, Haim. 1994. State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Güran, Tevfik. 1997. Osmanlı Devleti'nin İlk İstatistik Yıllığı. Ankara: T. C. Başbakanlık Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü.Google Scholar
Hanioğlu, Şükrü M. 2008. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Herzog, Christoph. 2003. Corruption and Limits of the State in the Ottoman Province of Baghdad during the 19th Century. MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 3: 36–43.Google Scholar
Hooley, Richard. 1996. The Commercial Court in England. In Commercial Justice: Proceedings, Multilateral Meeting, 33–36. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.Google Scholar
Iseminger, Gordon L. 1968. The Old Turkish Hands: The British Levantine Consuls, 1856–1876. Middle East Journal 22 (3): 297–316.Google Scholar
Karal, Enver Ziya. 1996. Osmanlı Tarihi, Vol. 8. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi.Google Scholar
Kasaba, Reşat. 1993. Treaties and Friendships: British Imperialism, the Ottoman Empire, and China in the Nineteenth Century. Journal of World History 4 (2): 215–41.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Thomas D., and Montinola, Gabriella R. 1997. Toward a Methodology for the Comparative Study of Political Corruption. Crime, Law and Social Change 27 (3–4): 185–206.Google Scholar
Lockman, Zachary. 2004. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Ruth A. 2005. Legislating Authority: Sin and Crime in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Osborne, Thomas. 1994. Bureaucracy as a Vocation: Governmentality and Administration in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Journal of Historical Sociology 7 (3): 289–313.Google Scholar
Owen, Roger. 2002. The Middle East in the World Economy: 1800–1914. London: I. B. Tauris (first published 1981 by Methuen).Google Scholar
Özcan, Azmi. 1997. Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain, 1877–1924. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Özdemir, Bülent. 2005. Being Part of the Cinderella Service: Consul Charles Blunt at Salonica in the 1840s. In Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, Vol. 2, ed. Imber, Colin and Kiyotaki, Keiko, 241–53. London: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Paz, Omri. 2011. Crime, Criminals, and the Ottoman State: Anatolia between the Late 1830s and the Late 1860s. PhD diss., Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel-Aviv University.Google Scholar
Petrov, Milen V. 2004. Everyday Forms of Compliance: Subaltern Commentaries on Ottoman Reform, 1864–1868. Comparative Study of Society and History 46 (4): 730–59.Google Scholar
Platt, D. C. M. 1963. The Role of the British Consular Service in Overseas Trade, 1825–1914. Economic History Review, New Series 15 (3): 494–512.Google Scholar
Quataert, Donald. 1994. The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914. In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 2, ed. Inalcik, Halil and Quataert, Donald, 832–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Redlawsk, David P., and McCann, James A. 2005. Popular Interpretations of “Corruption” and their Partisan Consequences. Political Behavior 27 (3): 261–83.Google Scholar
Rubin, Avi. 2007. Legal Borrowing and its Impact on Ottoman Legal Culture in the Late Nineteenth Century. Continuity and Change 22 (2): 279–303.Google Scholar
Rubin, Avi. 2009. Ottoman Judicial Change in the Age of Modernity: A Reappraisal. History Compass 7 (1): 119–40.Google Scholar
Rubin, Avi. 2011. Ottoman Nizamiye Courts: Law and Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Starr, June. 1992. Law as a Metaphor: From Islamic Courts to the Palace of Justice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
van Den Boogert, Maurits H. 2005. The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls and Beratlıs in the 18th Century. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yellin, David. 1972. Yerushalayim shel Tmol. Jerusalem: R. Mas.Google Scholar

Ottoman Statutes and official Publications Cited

Ceride-i Mehakim (Journal of the Courts).Google Scholar
Code of Civil Procedure. 1879. Düstur, 1st edition, Vol. 4, 261–32.Google Scholar
Law of the Nizamiye Judicial Organization. 1879. Düstur, 1st edition, Vol. 4, 245–60.Google Scholar
Mecelle-i Ahkâm-ı Adliye. 1869–1876. Istanbul: Matbaa-i Osmaniye.Google Scholar
Vilayet Laws. 1864, 1871. Düstur, 1st edition, Vol. 1, 608–51.Google Scholar

Correspondence Cited (British National Archive)

Bennet to Foreign Office. October, 1880. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
Biliotti to Goschen. November 12, 1880. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
Biliotti to Granville. May 29, 1880. FO 424/106.Google Scholar
Chermside to Layard. May 14, 1880. FO 424/106.Google Scholar
Gatheral to Dufferin. October 15, 1881. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
Layard to Salisbury. October 15, 1879. FO 424/91.Google Scholar
Layard to Salisbury. October 26, 1879. FO 424/91.Google Scholar
Stewart to Goschen. September 23, 1880. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
Stewart to Wilson. December 20, 1879. FO 424/106.Google Scholar
Trotter to Goschen. October 26, 1880. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
White to Salisbury. December 24, 1887. FO 424/145.Google Scholar
Wilson to Goschen. June 30, 1880. FO 424/106.Google Scholar
Wilson to Goschen. May 9, 1881. PRO 30/29/348.Google Scholar
Wilson to Layard. January 7, 1880. FO 424/106.Google Scholar
Wilson to Layard. June 16, 1880. FO 424/106.Google Scholar