all the laws made by judges relating to England and Wales There has been, and continues to be, much argument among legal philosophers as to whether judges actually make or create law out of nothing, or merely declare what the law has always been. Many judges state that they do not make the law, they discover it and thus declare what it has always been. This latter viewpoint is referred to as the declaratory theory of law making and these matters will be discussed in detail in other courses. This is a practical book about how to analyse the existing common law as recorded in the law reports and how to understand UK and European legislation. It is, therefore for the reader to come to a conclusion about who is right over the issue of declaring or creating. 3.3.1.1 The doctrine of precedent An English judge when deciding a case must refer to similar prior decisions of the higher courts and keep to the reasoning in those cases. If a previous case has dealt with similar facts and the same rules, then the present case has to be decided in the same way. This process is known as the doctrine of precedent. The doctrine is referred to by the use of a Latin phrase which is usually shortened to:

2012 ◽  
pp. 45-45
Author(s):  
Kurt X. Metzmeier

The introduction provides the background history of American law reporting. After the American Revolution, the early law reporters helped create a new common law inspired by the law of England but fully grounded in the printed decisions of American judges. English law reports, whose reporters eventually achieved the same authority as their reports, were the model. It took time for the first state opinions to appear in print because publication was not commercially feasible. The first law reporters collected the opinions of the court, selected the best, and financed their printing; later they received state subsidies. The early Kentucky law reports were extensions of the personalities of their creators, an individualistic group of rising young lawyers, future and former judges, aspiring politicians, and enterprising journalists. The history of Kentucky courts and the state’s political environment are also surveyed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kearns

This essay argues that the 1675 conviction of John Taylor by the Court of King's Bench for slandering God reveals Chief Justice Matthew Hale implementing a model of conjoint law-making between courts, Parliament, and crown that gave pre-eminent power to the common lawyers, and none to the Church of England. In doing so, it counters the prevailing literature on Restoration English law, which has treated the law as hierarchical, with the common lawyers subordinate to the sovereign. Rather than following statute or ecclesiastical law, which emphasised the spiritual nature of crimes like Taylor's, Hale located Taylor's offence in the exclusively temporal common law jurisdiction of defamation, which existed largely outside of monarchical purview. Hale's judgment reflected his rhetoric of judicial office outside the courtroom, where he argued the judiciary worked alongside King and Parliament in making law, but were not subservient to these institutions, for common lawyers relied on sources of law beyond sovereign-made statute. The language of sovereignty as hierarchical was thus a factional attack on an independent common law, an attempt to subordinate the common lawyers to the crown that was resisted by the lawyers like Hale in his rhetoric and exercise of office, and should not ground accounts of the Restoration regime.


1997 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-536
Author(s):  
Dame Mary Arden

Parliament has imposed on the Law Commission the duty to review the law of England and Wales “with a view to its systematic development and reform, including in particular the codification of [the] law … and generally the simplification and modernisation of the law”. There are a number of points which flow from this. First, as a body which reviews great swathes of the common law to see if they require to be modernised or simplified, the Law Commission has a unique standpoint from which to view the strengths and weaknesses of the common law method. Second, it has unique experience of law reform and the Parliamentary process. Third, in discharge of its functions, it has an interest in seeing that, if codification is appropriate, a recommendation to that effect is made to the Lord Chancellor. It need not be the Law Commission which carries out the recommendation, and indeed the Law Commission could not carry out a project purely of its own initiative.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-265
Author(s):  
Baris Soyer

Determining the scope of the fraudulent claims rule in insurance law has posed a significant challenge for the courts, particularly in the last two decades. In the shadow of the doctrine of utmost good faith, the law in this area has developed in an uncompromising fashion introducing draconian remedies against an assured who submits a fraudulent claim. The Supreme Court's most recent intervention has provided much needed guidance on the state of the law. This article, taking into account the fact that in other areas of law more proportionate remedies have gradually been introduced, discusses the boundaries of the fraudulent claims rule in insurance law as it applies in England and Wales and Scotland. Considering that the insurers might be tempted to introduce fraudulent claims clauses into their contracts to expand the common law definition of insurance fraud at the claims stage, this article also evaluates the wording of such clauses often used in practice and concludes that they lack the desired clarity.


2004 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myint Zan

This article compares the annual Law Reports of the first year of Burmese independence in 1948 with those published in the fiftieth year of Burmese independence (1998). In making the comparison, the author highlights the fundamental changes that occurred in the structure and composition of the highest courts in Burma, along with relevant background and factors effecting these changes. There was a movement away from the predominant use of English in 1948 towards judgments exclusively in Burmese in the 1998 Law Reports. Burma's neighbours, who shared a common law legal heritage, did not follow this trend after their independence. This shift, combined with Burma's isolation from the rest of the world, makes analysis of Burmese case law from the past three and a half decades very difficult for anyone not proficient in the Burmese language. This article tries to fill the lacunae as far as the Law Report from the fiftieth year of Burma's independence is concerned.


Author(s):  
Adrian Briggs

This book provides a survey and analysis of the rules of private international law as they apply in England. Written to take account of the various possible outcomes of the Brexit process, it goes as far as is possible to make sense of the effect this will have on English private international law. The volume covers general principles, jurisdiction, and the effect of foreign judgments; the law applicable to contractual and non-contractual obligations; and the private international law of property, of adults (the increasingly complex law of children is described in bare outline), and of corporations. This new edition of the text organizes the existing material in light of European legislation on private international law, reflecting the way in which an accurate representation of English private international law required it to be seen as European law with a common law periphery, instead of common law with European legislative influences. As at the time of writing—and probably for some time to come—the consequences of Brexit are a mystery, the attempt is made to describe the various possible shapes which the subject will assume in the future.


Author(s):  
Paul Daly

This chapter analyses, from a comparative perspective, the law of judicial review of administrative action as it relates to factual error. The analyses is conducted in four common law jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, England and Wales, and Ireland), which have a ‘filial relationship’ as part of the common law tradition of controlling administrative action through the ordinary courts. The chapter outlines the traditional approach to judicial review of factual error in the four jurisdictions, characterized by limited judicial oversight of issues of fact. Next, the chapter describes the recent evolution in the law of judicial review of factual error. Although the evolutionary path has not led to the same destination in each jurisdiction, there has been increased judicial willingness to examine alleged factual errors in judicial review proceedings. However, the factors which have influenced the evolution of the law are different in each jurisdiction.


Author(s):  
Fox Hazel ◽  
Webb Philippa

This chapter provides a list of the sources, both international and national, of the law of State immunity and a brief survey of relevant treaties and projects for codification in existence prior to the adoption in 2004 of the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property (UNCSI). Accepting the sources of international law to be as summarized in Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), law-making international conventions are clearly the best source of the principles and rules relating to State immunity. Not until the twenty-first century was the law of State immunity accorded sufficient relevance for States to adopt an international convention dealing with the topic and for the issues which it raised to come before the ICJ.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qianlan Wu

The rule of law as a globally recognised concept is multi-faceted (Chesterman, 2008). In the common-law tradition, it is conceived through a formal and substantive framework. In essence, it centres on the supremacy of the law over the arbitrary exercise of power and the formal legality of the law (Tamanaha, 2004, p. 115; Cotterrell, 1992, p. 157). The rule-of-law concept has been criticised as being of unique European origin, where plural social organisation and universal natural law constitute its two preconditions (Unger, 1977, pp. 80–110). It has, however, been advocated around the world as one essential principle leading to modernity, where the legitimacy of the law based on the formal and substantive rule of law serves as a strong symbol for a modern society (Deflem, 1996, p. 5).


This work attempts to state the law of England and Wales relating to the duties and liabilities of directors of companies, both civil and criminal. The most important elements of the legal framework affecting these matters are the company’s constitution and the Companies Act 2006, but particular aspects of a director’s conduct may engage other statutory provisions (eg Insolvency Act 1986 or criminal legislation). Common law rules and equitable principles provide the background that informs the interpretation of the legislation and the assessment by the court of a director’s conduct. Also relevant are ‘industry standards’ such as the UK Corporate Governance Code, which applies to listed companies, and guidance from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for companies subject to its regulation.


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