Raymond Cocks

‘Sustaining the Character of a Judge’: Conflict within the Legal Thought of British India

Judicial roles provided the raj with major dilemmas. One persistent dispute related to civil servants sitting as judges. Critics argued that civil servants had a superficial legal education and lacked appropriate practical experience of work in the courts. Defenders of their judicial role contended that the best training for judges lay in administrative work on the plains of the sub-continent. Governors-general, viceroys, and others in executive positions claimed that such work provided officials with an understanding of Indian society and that this social knowledge made them effective judges. Professional judges drawn from the ranks of barristers and sitting in the major cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras frequently contested this view and the result was sustained disagreement. At the heart of the debate lay competing visions of justice.

Social Roles and Legal Rights: Three Women in Early Nineteenth-Century India

Abstract In the early decades of the nineteenth century the small European societies in Madras (now Chennai) and Bombay (now Mumbai) were divided by disputes of such intensity that the authorities in London feared for the future of British power in India. The divisions were legal and social. In law, the Governors and the Supreme Courts of both cities contested the scope of their respective roles with the arguments focusing on the rights of Indians. Again and again, government took alarm at the ‘pro-Indian’ views of reforming judges. The debates were reflected in European social divisions, thereby making them all the more intransigent; legal allegiance became linked to social allegiance. It was this mixture of the legal and the social which gave the wives and other female relatives of the judges a role in the process of reform. Normally confined to multiple pregnancies and restrained social functions, the divisions in European life gave these women an opportunity to influence legal change. Without making official public statements they took part in the development of ideas about Indian rights.

The new associate member from the University of Khartoum: African dimensions

At an early stage in his career William Twining went to teach in Africa, going first to Khartoum and then Dar es Salaam. In both places he participated in lively debates about the future of legal education, and the experience encouraged him to take forward adventurous interdisciplinary work. On his return to the United Kingdom this background strengthened his commitment to avoid all forms of parochialism in legal thought and instead to develop global perspectives on law.

Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History

turies past and today, I suggest that Probert has done the same with marriage. Her account, like most family law scholarship, presents unregulated cohabitation as the problem that law must address, rather than (for instance) our outdated matrimonial laws which, dating from decades ago, envisaged a very different kind of marriage from either the usual or the aspirational forms today – that is, marriages premised on equality rather than dependence. That this is not discussed is not because Probert has never thought about these things – indeed, I have had many conversations on the subject with her – but because she does not regard policy as relevant to this book’s largely descriptive purpose. This is a pity, because for me the greatest value of a historical account lies in the way it explains how we have come to be where we are; and it is only when we grasp the trajectory of history that we can formulate policy for the present and speculate about the future in an informed way. But do not let this reservation (which doubtless says as much about the reviewer as about the work under review) put you off: this is a terrific book, a splendid contribution to the literature on the interaction between an important social phenomenon and law, and a powerful corrective to many legal and historical myths. It’s meticulously researched, elegantly written, and a hugely entertaining read.

Dewigged, Bothered, and Bewildered: British Colonial Judges on Trial, 1800–1900

one particular criticism of the book, though, it must be in respect of the index. Arranged, with generous spacing, over three pages it could easily be fitted into a mere two containing only some fifty entries. The surprising brevity of the index is, I think, a problem. No doubt this is a consequence of the work also being available as an e-book. However, there were several things I wished to look up in writing this review that I could not. I think the absence of a more comprehensive index is an irritating defect that will prevent the paper work being as useful as it might otherwise be. That aside this is a thorough and useful study.

Enforced Creativity: Noel Hutton and the New Law for Development Control, 1945–47

Abstract The British Labour Government of 1945 was committed to a major programme of legislation which included the reform of planning law. When debating these planning reforms, politicians focused on contentious political issues of the day such as the rights of landowners to compensation. They did not devote as much attention to the principles and mechanisms of a new system for controlling development. This task was usually left to departmental civil servants, but the latter were not given sufficient time to produce appropriate policies for all the new legislation. In practice this meant that numerous problems were passed on to the one group of people who could not pass them on to anyone else. The Parliamentary Counsel responsible for drafting the Act were given a creative role which they did not seek, and which they could not avoid, and this was to be significant for the content of the new law. One Parliamentary Counsel in particular came to take on a dominant role. In a real sense, it may be said that the anonymous people who drafted this important law were also the people who made it. The unsystematic process by which important law reforms may come under the control of a few particular civil servants in Whitehall can be relevant in determining the content of legislation.