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HISTORY TO UNDERSTAND, AND HISTORY TO REFORM, ENGLISH PUBLIC LAW

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2013

J. W. F. Allison
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Abstract

This article considers the contentious invocations of history that have become prominent in debates about English public law. It presents them as uses of history not simply to understand English public law but to reform it, through the reconstruction of historic authorities or reappraisal of historical sources. This article addresses the criticism they have attracted by distinguishing different kinds of orthodox and unorthodox reformist history. It advocates their transparent use and thoroughly deliberative history for reformist purposes in public law. It does so in three distinctive ways: first, by suggesting implications of Coke's dictum on causal understanding for whig historical approaches in the common law; secondly, by reassessing Maitland's dichotomy between the lawyer's logic of authority and the historian's logic of evidence; and, thirdly, by arguing that much can be learnt from the methodological caution, deliberation and rigour promoted by comparativists in their developed literature on legal transplants and law reform.

Keywords

Deliberative historyreformist historywhig historyrevisionist historyCokecausal understandingMaitlandlegal transplants
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Articles
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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 526 - 557
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Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2013 

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References

1 History lost prominence, in part, through the influence of Dicey, who outlined his subject at the start of The Law of the Constitution by contrasting the legal view of the constitution with historical and political views and by discounting the historical view in legal significance: A.V. Dicey, The Oxford Edition of Dicey (Oxford 2013) by J.W.F. Allison (ed.), vol. 1, The Law of the Constitution, pp. 12 ff. See Allison, J.W.F., “History in the Law of the Constitution” (2007) 28 The Journal of Legal History 263CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J.W.F. Allison, The English Historical Constitution: Continuity, Change and European Effects (Cambridge 2007), 7 ff.

2 See, e.g., Forsyth, C.F., “Of Fig Leaves and Fairy Tales: The Ultra Vires Doctrine, the Sovereignty of Parliament and Judicial Review” [1996] C.L.J. 122, 124Google Scholar ff.; Craig, P.P., “Public Law, Political Theory and Legal Theory” [2000] P.L. 211Google Scholar; T.R.S. Allan, Constitutional Justice: A Liberal Theory of the Rule of Law (Oxford 2001), v, 13 f., 205 f.; M. Loughlin, The Idea of Public Law (Oxford 2003), v, 37 ff., 148 ff.; A. Tomkins, Our Republican Constitution (Oxford 2005), ch. 3; M. Loughlin, Foundations of Public Law (Oxford 2010).

3 H. Butterfield, The Englishman and his History (Cambridge 1944), 49. See generally H. Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London 1931).

4 W.S. Holdsworth (quoting Kipling), “Sir Edward Coke” in W.S. Holdsworth, Some Makers of English Law, the Tagore Lectures 1937–38 (Cambridge 1938), lect. 6, especially p. 132.

5 See Baker, J.H., “Why the History of English Law Has Not Been Finished”, (Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge, 14 October 1998) [2000] C.L.J. 62, 64Google Scholar.

6 Maitland, F.W., “Why the History of English Law Is Not Written”, Inaugural Lecture, 13 October 1888, in H.A.L. Fisher (ed.), The Collected Papers of Frederic William Maitland (Cambridge 1911), vol. 1, pp. 480–97Google Scholar, 490–92.

7 W. Bagehot, The English Constitution by M. Taylor (ed.) (Oxford 2001), 48.

8 Town Investments v Department of Environment [1978] A.C. 359, 397F.

9 The satirical words are those of F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England: A Course of Lectures (Cambridge 1908), 418.

10 See, e.g., Town Investments v Department of Environment [1978] A.C. 359, 381B, 384D, 393E-G; F.W. Maitland, “The Crown as Corporation” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 3, pp. 244–70, 259. See generally Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, ch. 3.

11 Feldman, D., “None, One or Several? Perspectives on the UK's Constitution(s)” [2005] C.L.J. 329, 331Google Scholar ff.

12 Dr. Bonham's Case (1610) 8 Co. Rep. 107; Beatty v Gillbanks (1882) 9 Q.B.D. 308.

13 R v Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte Factortame Ltd. (No. 2) [1991] 1 A.C. 603. See generally Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, ch. 5.

14 Jackson v Attorney General [2006] 1 A.C. 262, at [102].

15 See Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2003] Q.B. 151.

16 Jackson v Attorney General [2006] 1 A.C. 262, at [102].

17 See, e.g., Hansard, HL Deb. vol. 657 cols. 927–9 (9 February 2004). See generally Windlesham, Lord, “The Constitutional Reform Act 2005: the Politics of Constitutional Reform” [2006] P.L. 35Google Scholar.

18 Sections 2, 3.

19 Paragraph [61].

20 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. 1 (Oxford 1765), 257–60. For a historical account of the doctrinal development of the English separation of powers and its formal continuity, see Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, ch. 4. See generally M.J.C. Vile, Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis 1998), 111–15.

21 See Allison, “History in the Law of the Constitution”, note 1 above. For part of the explanation, see note 1 above.

22 Forsyth, “Of Fig Leaves and Fairy Tales”, note 2 above. Cf. the damning criticism of the ultra vires doctrine by D. Oliver, “Is the Ultra Vires Rule the Basis of Judicial Review?” [1987] P.L. 543.

23 Craig, P.P., “Constitutions, Property and Regulations” [1991] P.L. 538Google Scholar, especially 538; Sir Matthew Hale, De Portibus Maris, 1 Harg L. Tr. 78 (1787); Alnutt v Inglis (1810) 12 East 527. See generally M. Taggart, “Public Utilities and Public Law” in P.A. Joseph (ed.), Essays on the Constitution (Wellington 1995), 214–64.

24 Calvin's Case (1609) 7 Co. Rep. 1, 28a.

25 “Of Fig Leaves and Fairy Tales”, note 2 above, 125–26.

26 Ibid., 126. See also H.W.R. Wade and C.F. Forsyth, Administrative Law, 9th ed. (Oxford 2004), 40.

27 M. Elliott, The Constitutional Foundations of Judicial Review (Oxford 2001), ch 5, especially p. 195. See also Elliott, M., “The Ultra Vires Doctrine in a Constitutional Setting: Still the Central Principle of Administrative Law” [1999] C.L.J. 129, 154–56Google Scholar; M. Elliott and R. Thomas, Public Law (Oxford 2011), 461–68.

28 He has suggested that proportionality-based review introduced in human rights cases affects but “does not wholly collapse the distinction between appeal and review”, Elliott, M., “The Human Rights Act 1998 and the Standard of Substantive Review” [2001] C.L.J. 301, 313Google Scholar.

29 Public Law, note 27 above, p. 452.

30 H.W.R. Wade and C.F. Forsyth, Administrative Law, 10th ed. (Oxford 2009), 29. Cf. ibid., pp. 30 ff., 287 f. Cf. generally Paul Craig's integrated account of the ultra vires principle and the distinction between review and appeal, P.P. Craig, Administrative Law, 7th ed. (Oxford 2012), [1-002] to [1-004].

31 Craig, P.P., “Ultra Vires and the Foundations of Judicial Review” [1998] P.L. 63Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., 89.

33 Craig, P.P., “Competing Models of Judicial Review” [1999] P.L. 428, 444Google Scholar.

34 Poole, T., “Back to the Future? Unearthing the Theory of Common Law Constitutionalism” (2003) 23 O.J.L.S. 435CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 444 f.

35 Dr. Bonham's Case (1610) 8 Co. Rep. 107; Craig, “Ultra Vires”, note 31 above, 88. See also P.P. Craig, “Public Law, Political Theory and Legal Theory” [2000] P.L. 211, 233. Cf. generally Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, ch. 6.

36 Craig, “Public Law, Political Theory and Legal Theory”, note 35 above, 234 f.

37 See J.W.F. Allison, A Continental Distinction in the Common Law: A Historical and Comparative Perspective on English Public Law, rev. pbk. ed. (Oxford 2000).

38 Craig, “Public Law, Political Theory and Legal Theory”, note 35 above, 239.

39 Allan, Constitutional Justice, note 2 above, p. v; Dr. Bonham's Case (1610) 8 Co. Rep. 107, 118a.

40 Co. Inst. 4, 330; 1 Co. Inst. 1, 272b; Allan, Constitutional Justice, note 2 above, pp. 205 f.

41 Co. Inst. 4, 330 (emphasis added).

42 Cf. generally Walters, M.D., “Common Law, Reason and Sovereign Will” (2003) 53 University of Toronto Law Journal 65, especially 73–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Poole, “Back to the Future?”, note 34 above, pp. 445 f.; Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, pp. 208–10.

43 (1608) 12 Co. Rep. 63.

44 (1611) 12 Co. Rep. 74.

45 Our Republican Constitution, note 2 above, pp. 69–87.

46 A. Tomkins, Public Law (Oxford 2003).

47 Ibid., pp. 33–47. He did not adopt a comparably historical perspective on, for example, the concept of the state or of public law in the English historical context. Cf., e.g., ibid., pp. 1–2, 22. See generally Allison, Continental Distinction in the Common Law, note 37 above.

48 Public Law, note 46 above, pp. 39, 46.

49 Ibid., p. 46.

50 Cf., e.g., ibid., pp. 41, 56–58.

51 Our Republican Constitution, note 2 above, pp. 52–56, 87–98. Cf. generally the complex historical accounts of, e.g., J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law, A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century: A Reissue with a Retrospect (Cambridge 1987), 306 ff.; A. Cromartie, The Constitutionalist Revolution: An Essay on the History of England, 1450–1642 (Cambridge 2006), ch. 8; J.P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London 1986).

52 Our Republican Constitution, note 2 above, p. 55.

53 Ibid., p. vii.

54 Q. Skinner, “Classical Liberty, Renaissance Translation and the English Civil War” in Q. Skinner, Visions of Politics (Cambridge 2002), vol. 2, pp. 308–43, especially 312 (emphasis added). See also Q. Skinner, “John Milton and the Politics of Slavery”, ibid., pp. 286–307, especially 287.

55 Loughlin, M., “Towards a Republican Revival?” (2006) 26 O.J.L.S. 425CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Ibid., 427.

57 Ibid., 435, 432.

58 Ibid., 435.

59 M. Loughlin, Public Law and Political Theory (Oxford 1992), especially chs. 5–9; Loughlin, Idea of Public Law, note 2 above; Loughlin, Foundations of Public Law note 2 above.

60 See, however, the concern he expresses about the prospect of “judicial supremacism” if public law is reduced to “a species of ordinary law”, Foundations of Public Law, note 2 above, p. 6.

61 Idea of Public Law, note 2 above, p. vii.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid., pp. 38 ff., 148 ff., especially p. 163, para. [40].

64 Ibid., p. 101.

65 “Nor I hope will it be considered presumptuous for a man of low and humble status to dare to discuss and lay down the law about how princes should rule; because, just as men who are sketching the landscape put themselves down in the plain to study the nature of the mountains and the highlands, and to study the low-lying land they put themselves high in the mountains, so, to comprehend fully the nature of the people, one must be a prince, and to comprehend fully the nature of princes one must be an ordinary citizen”, N. Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. and tr. by G. Bull (London 1961), 30.

66 Idea of Public Law, note 2 above, p. 149.

67 See Foundations of Public Law, note 2 above, pp. 102 ff.

68 Ibid., p. 2.

69 Ibid., pp. 2 f.

70 Ibid., p. 6.

71 Idea of Public Law, note 2 above, p. vii.

72 Loughlin's dismisses, e.g., analytical treatment of Bracton's notion of the king under God and the law despite Bracton's symbolic significance in the British context (ibid, pp. 134 f.). He dismisses the separation of powers in Blackstone as an inexcusable copy of Montesquieu's error (ibid., p. 24). At one point, he presents classical liberalism itself as sustenance in the retreat of many lawyers who “have simply withdrawn from the attempt to understand the character of the modern state” (ibid., pp. 27 f.).

73 Foundations of Public Law, note 2 above, pp. 2 f.

74 Loughlin, M., “The Importance of Elsewhere”, Review of Paul Craig's Public Law and Democracy in the United Kingdom and the Unites States of America (Oxford 1990), (1993) 4 Public Law Review 44, 57.Google Scholar

75 See pp. 545 ff. below.

76 See generally J. Burrow, A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century (London 2007); Rose, J., “Studying the Past: the Nature and Development of Legal History as an Academic Discipline” (2010) 31 Journal of Legal History 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Loughlin, “Towards a Republican Revival?”, note 55 above, 436, 435.

78 Allan's treatment of Dicey, for example, has been said to exemplify “not an exercise in interpretation but … a disguised form of invention”, M. Loughlin, “The Pathways of Public Law Scholarship” in G.P. Wilson (ed.), Frontiers of Legal Scholarship: Twenty Five Years of Warwick Law School (Chichester 1995), 163–88, 181.

79 See, e.g., J.W.F. Allison, “The Spirits of the Constitution” in N. Bamforth and P. Leyland (eds.), Accountability in the Contemporary Constitution (Oxford 2013), 27–56, 45 ff.; Rederiaktiebolaget Amphitrite v The King [1921] 3 K.B. 500; Carltona Ltd. v Commissioner of Works [1943] 2 All E.R. 560; Duncan v Cammell, Laird & Co. Ltd. [1942] A.C. 624.

80 F. W. Maitland, The Forms of Action at Common Law (Cambridge 1936), 2.

81 F. W. Maitland, “A Survey of the Century, Law” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 3, pp. 432–39, 439. See also F.W. Maitland, “The Making of the German Civil Code”, ibid., pp. 474–88, especially 486–87.

82 See Rose, “Studying the Past”, note 76 above, pp. 111–15.

83 F.W. Maitland, “The Law of Real Property” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 1, pp. 162–201. See T.F.T. Plucknett, “Maitland's View of Law and History” in T.F.T. Plucknett, Early English Legal Literature (Cambridge 1958), ch. 1, pp. 7–11; C.H.S. Fifoot, Frederic William Maitland: A Life (Cambridge, Mass. 1971), ch. 4.

84 In an undated letter to Dicey, Maitland claimed that the “only direct utility of legal history … lies in the lesson that each generation has an enormous power of shaping its own law” in P.N.R. Zutshi (ed.), The Letters of Frederic William Maitland (London 1995), vol. 2, pp. 104 f.

85 “Law of Real Property” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 1, pp. 162–201, 194.

86 F.W. Maitland, “The Crown as Corporation”, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 244–70, 245.

87 Cf. pp. 532 ff. above.

88 See p. 539 above.

89 “Ultra Vires”, note 31 above, 89. See p. 533 above.

90 W.S. Holdsworth, Some Lessons from Our Legal History (New York 1928), 6, 157.

91 “The Constitutional Revolution”, lecture, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, 20 April 2004, p. 5, http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/faculty-resources/download/the-constitutional-revolution/1587 (last visited 8 March 2013). See also Sir John Baker, “Our Unwritten Constitution”, Maccabean Lecture on Jurisprudence, British Academy, 24 November 2009, (2010) 167 Proceedings of the British Academy, 91–117. See generally Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, ch. 1.

92 See, e.g., Allison, Continental Distinction in the Common Law, note 37 above, ch. 11, Afterword.

93 See generally R. Cotterrell, Law, Culture and Society: Legal Ideas in the Mirror of Social Theory (Aldershot 2006), especially ch. 5; J.S. Bell, French Legal Cultures (Cambridge 2001); D. Nelken (ed.), Comparing Legal Cultures (Aldershot 1997).

94 S.A. de Smith, Judicial Review of Administrative Action (London 1959), 5 f.

95 Ibid.

96 Q. Skinner, “Introduction: Seeing Things Their way” in Skinner, Visions of Politics, note 54 above, vol. 1, pp. 1–7, 6.

97 See, e.g., J.W.F. Allison (ed.), Oxford Edition of Dicey, note 1 above, vol. 1, pp. v–vi, xii–xvi, vol. 2, pp. xx ff.

98 Page 2. See p. 539 above.

99 See generally Butterfield, Whig Interpretation of History, note 3 above; Allison, English Historical Constitution, note 1 above, pp. 22–24, 165–85.

100 See generally Burrow, History of Histories, note 76 above, chs. 23, 25, 26.

101 Whig Interpretation of History, note 3 above.

102 “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” in Skinner, Visions of Politics, note 54 above, vol. 1, pp. 57–89.

103 Ibid., pp. 60 f.; Dr. Bonham's Case (1610) 8 Co. Rep. 107. See also Skinner's criticism of historical accounts of the separation of powers as a “growing” towards its modern developed form, op. cit., p. 62.

104 Ibid., p. 74.

105 Butterfield, Whig Interpretation of History, note 3 above, p. 6. See, e.g., Burrow, History of Histories, note 76 above, pp. 474, 518.

106 See, e.g., pp. 534 above.

107 Butterfield, Englishman and his History, note 3 above, p. 49.

108 Holdsworth, “Sir Edward Coke” in Holdsworth, Some Makers of English Law, note 4 above, lect. 6.

109 Co. Inst. 1, 183b: “We are said to know each single thing, when we think we know the first cause. To know is properly to understand a thing by reason and through its cause. Happy is the man who was able to understand the causes of things” (literal translation of the sentences in Latin).

110 Ibid.

111 In “illustrating the use and operation of established principles and institutions of Government”, Homersham Cox, for example, therefore had reason to cite Coke's dictum to explain his own retention of “historical and theoretical researches” (but not “researches of purely antiquarian interest”), H. Cox, The Institutions of the English Government (London 1863), p. ix.

112 Co. Inst. 1, 183b.

113 See. A.D. Boyer, “Coke's Historical Learning”, in A.D. Boyer, Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age (Stanford 2003), ch. 9, especially p. 152. See also Holdsworth, “Sir Edward Coke”, note 4 above.

114 Co. Inst. 1, 81a. Coke's reference in Co. Inst. 2, 8 is similar but less reductionist in that only a chapter of Magna Carta is said to be “but a restitution and declaration of the ancient common law”.

115 Stat. 16 Car. I, c. 10.

116 Ibid.

117 Commentaries, note 20 above, vol. 1, p. 260.

118 Dicey, Oxford Edition of Dicey, note 1 above, vol. 1, pp. 395 f.

119 See pp. 535 ff. above.

120 See pp. 552 ff.

121 Maitland, “Why the History of English Law Is Not Written” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 1, pp. 480–497, 491.

122 Ibid., p. 491. On Maitland's dichotomy, see generally Plucknett, “Maitland's View of Law and History”, note 83 above, pp. 11 ff.; Rose, “Studying the Past”, note 76 above, pp. 111 ff.

123 Plucknett, op. cit., p. 13.

124 Maitland, op. cit., pp. 490 f.

125 Ibid., p. 491.

126 J.S. Bell, “The Relevance of Foreign Examples to Legal Development” (2011) 21 Duke J. Comp. & Int'L. 431, 460.

127 1 February 1996, “The Renewal of the Old” [1997] C.L.J. 80.

128 See p. 532 above.

129 Constitutional Justice, note 2 above, p. 210.

130 Maitland, “Why the History of English Law Is Not Written” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 1, pp. 480–97, 491.

131 Public Law, note 46 above, p. 46. See p. 536 above.

132 Co. Inst. 4, 330; Allan, Constitutional Justice, note 2 above, pp. 205 f. See p. 535 above.

133 Similarly, what Allan presents as a “more plausible reading of Dicey” (Constitutional Justice, note 2 above, p. 13) would become fully transparent if reformulated as a “more plausible reconstruction” (or correction) of Dicey.

134 Montesquieu, De l'esprit des loix in J. Brèthe de la Gressaye (ed.) (Paris 1950), vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 3, p. 26; Kahn-Freund, O., “On Uses and Misuses of Comparative Law” (1974) 37 M.L.R. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also O. Kahn-Freund, “Common Law and Civil Law—Imaginary and Real Obstacles to Assimilation” in M. Cappelletti (ed.), New Perspectives for a Common Law of Europe (Leyden 1978), pp. 137–68.

135 Watson, A., “Legal Transplants and Law Reform” (1976) 92 L.Q.R. 79Google Scholar. See also A. Watson, Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law (Edinburgh 1974); Watson, A., “Aspects of Reception of Law” (1996) 44 American Journal of Comparative Law 335CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

136 J.S. Bell, “Mechanisms for Cross-fertilisation of Administrative Law in Europe” in J. Beatson and T. Tridimas (eds.), New Directions in European Public Law, (Oxford 1998), pp. 147–67; Bell, “Relevance of Foreign Examples”, note 126 above.

137 Markesinis, B. and Fedtke, J., “The Judge as Comparatist” (2005) 80 Tul. L. Rev. 11Google Scholar, especially 47, 69.

138 Bell, “Relevance of Foreign Examples”, note 126 above, 452.

139 J.W.F. Allison, “Transplantation and Cross-fertilisation” in Beatson and Tridimas (eds.), New Directions in European Public Law, note 136 above, pp. 169–82. See also the methodological rigour required by Markesinis and Fedtke, “Judge as Comparatist”, note 137 above, 109 ff. For an example of wide-ranging comparative consideration of theory, culture, history and institutional structure, see Feldman, D., “Public Interest Litigation and Constitutional Theory in Comparative Perspective” (1992) 55 M.L.R. 44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

140 Rose, “Studying the Past”, note 76 above, p. 111; Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” in Skinner, Visions of Politics, note 54 above, vol. 1, p. 76; Plucknett, “Maitland's View of Law and History”, note 83 above, ch. 1, especially pp. 2, 18. See also. F.W. Maitland, “William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford” in Fisher (ed.), Collected Papers, note 6 above, vol. 3, pp. 495–511.

141 Kahn-Freund, “Uses and Misuses of Comparative Law”, note 134 above, especially 11–13, 17.

142 See, e.g., the citations of Watson, note 135 above.

143 That distinction, e.g., might itself be rendered less significant through attention to its own historical context. For Wade, the “sharp” English distinction was “an inevitable consequence of our concept of the separation of powers, and of our own lack of administrative courts”, thus of a Diceyan contrast with French droit administratif that has become outdated, H.W.R. Wade, Administrative Law (Oxford 1961), p. 43.