Precedent in the Southern Hemisphere

Extract

I am most honoured to have been asked to deliver this lecture in the series of the Lionel Cohen Lectures in this University. During the years I practised as an advocate I had the privilege and advantage of appearing in London on more than one occasion before a board of the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council of which Lord Cohen was a member. May I respectfully say that in the argument of cases before him I came to appreciate his knowledge of the law and the perceptiveness of his mind in the resolution of complex legal problems. I always appreciated his unfailing courtesy and patience with counsel even when perforce counsel in the course of duty had to put what his Lordship thought was a bad and even an untenable argument. Also, I came to know him personally and joined the wide circle of his friends. I am very delighted to be now participating in a public acknowledgement of Lord Cohen as a jurist and as a man.