Many often refer to this, but are unclear what it means. Here it is in its basic language, with more references to come.
Feel free to copy it and carry it with you if ever harassed about fishing, and if you are in the right. We cannot move forward without knowledge of our rights.
As always, please be respectful and do not argue or become loud if you are challenged. It's not worth getting arrested over. However, in the future, if this continues, we may have to consider getting groups of fishermen together to challenge the laws, and come prepared with copies of this and other documentation.
Exciting times ahead, folks.
The Public Trust Doctrine
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ead.php?t=1044
The set of laws that guarantees all people rights to the water. First set by the Roman Emperor Justinian around A.D. 500 as part of Roman civil law, the Public Trust Doctrine establishes the public's right to full use of the seashore as declared in the following quotation from Book II of the Institutes of Justinian:
“By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind – the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea.
No one, therefore, is forbidden to approach the seashore, provided that he respects habitations, monuments, and the buildings, which are not, like the sea, subject only to the law of nations.”
Influenced by Roman civil law, the tenets of public trust were maintained through English common Law and adopted by the original 13 colonies.
Following the American Revolution, the royal right to tidelands was vested to the 13 new states, then to each subsequent state, and has remained a part of public policy into the present time.
Through various judicial decisions, the right of use upheld by the Public Trust Doctrine has been incorporated into many state constitutions and statutes, allowing the public the right to all lands, water and resources held in the public trust by the state, including those in New Jersey.
Here's the link:
http://www.nj.gov/dep/cmp/access/pub...s_handbook.pdf