This paper chronicles the very recent rise to prominence of the composite judgment, showing that at least one in seven decisions of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal is now delivered in the form of an agreed, collective judgment of the court. In effect, English courts have quietly espoused something resembling a civilian judicial procedure. The article considers when appellate courts have tended to have recourse to this device and how they allocate responsibilities for drafting composite judgments, and concludes with reflections on some of the consequences that could flow from widespread adoption of this new appellate device. A subsequent paper will explore further the philosophical and comparative ramifications of this significant shift in English judicial method.

Arguments are generated in an ad hoc way about the continuation of the monarchy. Such media-led arguments are no substitute for a rational analysis of constitutional issues, although of course public opinion has an important part to play in the future of any constitutional institution. At present there is not even a basic framework against which any such reasoned analysis could begin. While a case against the British monarchy has been constructed by several people, the silence of constitutional lawyers on the central issue of monarchy or republic is surprising, for what is that issue if not one concerning a central part of the constitution, and, indeed, a very pervasive one? The author,a constitutional lawyer, examines the constitutional arguments and implications about the alternatives of monarchy or republic in the United Kingdom and attempts to make clear which matters would require decision if the United Kingdom were to opt for republicanism. He demonstrates that a change to a British republic would require the resolution of many interrelated issues. Even the answer to the apparently simple question of principle of whether a monarchy or a republic is preferred may turn on the type of republic which was on offer. Conversion to a republic would involve wide and deep changes to much of the constitution because of the legal peculiarities of the ancient British monarchy. These are not insoluble difficulties, but they do mean that the abolition of the monarchy would be an intellectually challenging exercise.

The author focuses on the voluntary use by judge or counsel of foreign law and foreign legal ideas as a means of shaping national law when this is unclear, contradictory, or otherwise in need of reform, as distinct from the formal presentatin of foreign law through expert witnesses where such law has to be applied. The number of instances in which this kind of borrowing may happen must, of necessity, be limited. The problem is that foreign law is unlikely to come in a simple form, attractively packaged; and language is a major problem in judicial attempts to be inspired by a foreign idea if not to transplant the actual solution. This has led the author to advocate a more co-ordinated use of the different talents that judges, practitioners, and academics bring to the process of creating and interpreting law and to assist the process by provision, in the English language, of easily accessible accounts of relevant foreign material. The approach finds an excellent practical illustration in the judgment of the High Court in Greatorex v. Greatorex.

The Law Commission’s proposal for an offence of “corporate killing” (modelled on the common law crimeof gross negligence manslaughter) is criticised for vagueness and imprecison, for not comprehending serious non-fatal injuries, and for failing to recognise that in the absence of clear rules of attribution, any criminal liability imposed on an organisation can only be for failing to prevent something happening. It is suggested that offences (patterned on those of causing death by dangerous, or by careless and drunken driving) of causing death or serious injury by breaking (statutory) regulations would be a much better way of holding businesses and similar bodies as well as individuals liable for death and serious injuries that would not have occurred if those regulations had been obeyed.

There are a number of situations where it is possible to say that a person may, and in some cases almost certainly will, get an interest in property at some time in the future. However, until that time there is some degree of uncertainty: there is usually some risk that no interest will be acquired and there may be uncertainty as to the identity of the property or the nature of the interest. This article deals with the interim period between the act or event that initiates the interest and its final acquisition. It considers the approaches taken by the courts to the question of what rights, if any, come into existence during that interim period and whether there is a distinct entity or interest that can be described as a “floating right”.