When Sir Anthony Blunt's misdeeds were exposed to public gaze by revelations that he was the so-called fourth man in the notorious group who had spied for Russia, an important area of the criminal justice process was partially uncovered as a result. The Prime Minister confirmed in a House of Commons Written Answer that Mr. Blunt (as he later became) had been granted immunity from prosecution as long ago as 1964 by the Attorney-General, Sir John Hobson. No attempt was made to suggest that this was a routine occurrence, but in the ensuing debate, the Prime Minister asserted that “it is not unusual for the Attorney-General to be asked to authorise immunity from prosecution in return for co-operation in pursuit of inquiries. It happens from time to time in the course of criminal investigations.”

Over a hundred years have passed since the Judicature Acts rationalised the law relating to the assignment of choses in action and made it easier for an assignee to enforce his rights. Nowadays the assignability of contractual rights is important in both business and consumer affairs, since credit is commonly obtained on the security of insurance policies, hire-purchase contracts, and traders' and builders' book debts. Yet although the Judicature Acts facilitated these developments they did not deal with the possibility that a contract may expressly prohibit or restrict the assignment of rights arising under it. Many standard form contracts now incorporate a clause to this effect. Where an assignment is made in contravention of such a clause, does the transaction have no effect? If this is the case, non-assignment clauses would seem to pose a serious threat to current lending practices. The courts have had to consider this question in a number of cases and the result is a confusing array of Conflicting views.

Readers of A. P. Herbert's Misleading Cases will recall the fictitious decision in Haddock v. Thwaile, where the Court of Appeal extended strict liability under Rylands v. Fletcher to motor-cars on the highway, and—carried away on a tide of Luddite eloquence—revived and extended the law of deodand by ordering the unfortunate motorist's car to be destroyed. Nowadays it is almost forgotten that this story is nearly based on fact. Before the First World War, at the dawn of the motor age, the English courts came within a whisker of imposing strict liability upon the owner of a motor-car for all the damage which it causes in use.

In a notable contribution to the memorial volume to Sir Rupert Cross Dr. Andrew Ashworth has coined the phrase “representative labelling” as a desideratum in criminal cases. “The label applied to an offence ought fairly to represent the offender's wrongdoing.” I understand this to mean not merely that the name of the abstract offence but the particulars stated in the conviction should convey the degree of the offender's moral guilt, or at least should not be positively misleading as to that guilt, the chief reason being that on a later occasion the conviction may be on the back of the indictment before the judge or be read out in court and thus affect the future sentence. It is true that if the offender receives a lenient sentence this may be an indication to the later court that the particular offence was not as serious as the words of the conviction may suggest; but fair labelling would help to minimise the possibility of misunderstanding. In any case, a man may feel a sense of injustice if the terms of the conviction do not represent his real guilt.

Recently, addicts of the Foss v. Harbottle rule have had plenty to think about. First there was the epic battle in Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Newman Industries Ltd. (No. 2), culminating in the mangling of Vinelott J.'s mammoth judgment by the Court of Appeal. While this was in train, there was Cane v. Jones and before it was fully reported there came the decision of Megarry V.-C. in Eastmanco (Kilner House) Ltd. v. G.L.C. One disappointing feature of this feast of litigation is that it should end with so many basic issues seemingly at large. According to Megarry V.-C, it “may be” that the test of whether an individual can sue about an intracorporate dispute “will come to be” whether an ordinary resolution of the shareholders can validly carry out or ratify the acts in question. It was clear, however, that the “justice” of the case was not a practical test of an individual's competence to sue, but merely a reason for creating exceptions to the basic rule.”

The rules governing the exclusion of evidence in the public interest are usually discussed as if they were wholly the creation of the common law. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a submerged statutory underside to Crown privilege, an underside which is no less important for being hitherto largely invisible to the judicial eye. More than 100 Acts and statutory instruments restrict the use which government departments and other public bodies may make of the information they acquire. Each such Act or instrument is a potential barrier to the use of the information in the courtroom. Just why this vast mass of legislation should have remained for so long forensically invisible is not immediately apparent. It is true that most of it was drafted to regulate disclosure outside the courtroom and its evidentiary provisions are often tucked away in obscure subsections whose import may be unclear to those administering the Acts.