Law lecture: Can judges make mistakes?
2nd May 2005
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| Sir Neil MacCormick |
Does the Rule of Law require that judges simply take the law as the legislature issues it and apply it to the best of their ability? Or are there basic criteria of fairness built into the very idea of law such that judges have a special duty to uphold them?
This was a central issue raised by Professor Sir Neil MacCormick QC in his lecture, Can judges make mistakes? hosted last week by the Faculty of Law and law firm Freehills.
The NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman introduced the free public lecture held at the Supreme Court of NSW.
Speaking to a packed audience, Sir Neil said in the “contemporary world there is a pervasive atmosphere of concern about the powers of Courts and judges”.
He argued that a genuine attachment to democracy should not be taken as a bar on judicial powers to review acts of legislation even though it may sometimes be true that judicial decisions are not just controversial, but wrong. “They may, however, as easily be wrong by being too restrictive of the judicial function as well as by being too expansive in that respect.”
Sir Neil is one of the world's leading legal theorists, a distinguished academic lawyer and a prominent public intellectual. He is Regius Professor of Public Law at Edinburgh University and served as a Scottish Member of the European Parliament from 1999-2004. He was knighted for services to scholarship in law in 2001.
He is the author of many books and articles on legal and political theory, and his new book, Rhetoric and the Rule of Law will be published by Oxford University Press later this year.
Sir Neil is in Australia as the Freehills Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law.
This was a central issue raised by Professor Sir Neil MacCormick QC in his lecture, Can judges make mistakes? hosted last week by the Faculty of Law and law firm Freehills.
The NSW Chief Justice Jim Spigelman introduced the free public lecture held at the Supreme Court of NSW.
Speaking to a packed audience, Sir Neil said in the “contemporary world there is a pervasive atmosphere of concern about the powers of Courts and judges”.
He argued that a genuine attachment to democracy should not be taken as a bar on judicial powers to review acts of legislation even though it may sometimes be true that judicial decisions are not just controversial, but wrong. “They may, however, as easily be wrong by being too restrictive of the judicial function as well as by being too expansive in that respect.”
Sir Neil is one of the world's leading legal theorists, a distinguished academic lawyer and a prominent public intellectual. He is Regius Professor of Public Law at Edinburgh University and served as a Scottish Member of the European Parliament from 1999-2004. He was knighted for services to scholarship in law in 2001.
He is the author of many books and articles on legal and political theory, and his new book, Rhetoric and the Rule of Law will be published by Oxford University Press later this year.
Sir Neil is in Australia as the Freehills Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law.
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