For over 30 years, first as a QC, then as a judge, and latterly as a visiting professor of law at Oxford, Stephen Sedley has written and lectured about aspects of the law that do not always get the attention they deserve. His first anthology of essays, Ashes and Sparks, was praised in the New York Times by Ian McEwan for its 'exquisite, finely balanced prose, the prickly humour, the knack of artful quotation and an astonishing historical grasp'. 'You could have no interest in the law,' McEwan wrote, 'and read his book for pure intellectual delight.' The present volume contains more recent articles by Stephen Sedley on the law, many of them from the London Review of Books, and lectures given to a variety of audiences. The first part is concerned with law as part of history - Feste's 'whirligig of time'; the second part with law and rights. The third part is a group of biographical and critical pieces on a number of figures from the legal and musical worlds. The final part is more personal, going back to the author's days at the bar, and then forward to some parting reflections.

Offers a distinctive account of the rule of law and legislative sovereignty within the work of Albert Venn Dicey.

Winner of the 2022 Inner Temple New Authors Book Prize. This book seeks to further our understanding of the nature of administrative law doctrine and adjudication. It has three main aims. The first is to improve understanding of administrative law's 'anatomy' by pulling the subject apart and exploring the nature of the legal structures at play in adjudication. In doing so, the book emphasises three main ways in which administrative law's anatomy is both complex and diverse, namely: - administrative law doctrine interacts with a broad array of legislative frameworks; - administrative law adjudication seeks to accommodate a variety of legal values; and, - administrative law is concerned with legal relationships of different kinds. The second aim is to illustrate the importance of recognising the complexity and variety of administrative law's anatomy in three particular doctrinal contexts: procedural review, legitimate expectations and standing. The third and final aim is to raise an important but under-explored question: is it plausible and useful to attempt to make sense of administrative law doctrine by reference to a singular organising concept or principle? The overarching message of the book is one of cynicism. The complexity and variety of administrative law's legal structures probably means that attempts to explain the field 'monistically', while they may capture important themes, will be unhelpfully reductionist. Ambitious and thought-provoking, this is an important new statement on administrative law.

This book provides a detailed account of each law officer's functions and draws on that account as the basis for a conceptual analysis of their constitutional legitimacy. In recent years, the constitutional legitimacy of law officers has been questioned repeatedly because of recurring controversies surrounding the discharge of their varied functions. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that those functions enable law officers to play a highly influential part in the regulation and exercise of public power throughout the United Kingdom. McCormick argues that the most persuasive framework for analysing the offices which make up this diverse regime involves concentrating on the constitutional values of independence, accountability and trust which underpin it. Both aspects of the book – namely the explanation of individual functions and the conceptual analysis of collective legitimacy – are written in a holistic way which encompasses critical analyses about the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England and Wales; the Counsel General for Wales; the Lord Advocate, Solicitor General and Advocate General for Scotland, as well as the Attorney General and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.

From 1900 to 1908 includes the "Annual digest of Canadian cases ... decided in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the Supreme and Exchequer Courts of Canada, and in the courts of the provinces ... Edited by Edward B. Brown."

There is a developing body of legal reasoning in the United Kingdom Supreme Court in which members of the senior judiciary have asserted the primary role of common law constitutional rights and critiqued legal arguments based first and foremost on the Human Rights Act 1998. Their calls for a shift in legal reasoning have created a sense amongst both scholars and the judiciary that something significant is happening. Yet despite renewed academic and judicial interest we have limited insight into what common law constitutional rights we have, how they work and what they offer. This book is the first collection of its kind to systematically explore both the content and role of individual common law constitutional rights alongside the constitutional significance and broader implications of these developments. It therefore contributes not only to our understanding of what the common law might be capable of offering in terms of the protection of rights, but also to our understanding of the nature of the constitutional order of which such rights are an integral part.