Jim Murdoch

Using self- and peer assessment at honours level: bridging the gap between law school and the workplace

Growing awareness and interest in pedagogical issues permit greater experimentation with the design and delivery of law teaching. While employability skills are now commonplace within the law curriculum, the development of graduate attributes can also be enhanced through assessment methods requiring students to apply clearly understood criteria to their own performance. Where students are allocated work-related tasks, moderated self- and peer assessment can also help replicate the sense of “real” situations and act as an even more powerful stimulus to learning. The article considers staff and student perceptions of group-based learning in which assessment is considered both a means to “deep learning” and an end in itself insofar as students are allocated the task of formally recommending grades for coursework. Recognising that student-led learning and student-driven assessment are still relatively unorthodox in law teaching, the article concludes that this form of assessment method can clearly assist learning and the enhancement of graduate attributes and moreover can be justified objectively by reference to standard assumptions of validity, reliability, convenience and integrity.

The Binding Effect of the ECHR in the United Kingdom – Views from Scotland

This Chapter seeks to complement the Chapter on England and Wales by focusing upon the distinctly Scottish issues created by the existence of a separate legal system and the more recent emergence of devolved government. It considers the ‘incorporation’ of regional protection provided by the European Convention on Human Rights, seeks to examine the extent to which international human rights standards are of any influence in the development of domestic human rights protection, and addressed the complex inter-relationships between two key legislative enactments giving effect to ECHR guarantees on the one hand, and the human rights standards of the two ‘Europes’, the Council of Europe and the European Union on the other. The Chapter concludes by noting the creation of a distinct national human rights institution for Scotland.

Police Powers and Criminal Investigations

One of the main tasks of the police is to bring criminal suspects to justice so that they may be subjected to a criminal trial. Police action may influence in various ways the fairness of criminal proceedings. This chapter outlines those aspects of the guarantees laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights that have an impact upon the discharge of policing, with a focus on the requirements of fair criminal investigations and trials.