Michaelmas
Precedent — bindingness and departure. *London Tramways*, the 1966 Practice Statement, and
"In 1898 the House of Lords declared itself absolutely bound by its own decisions; in 1966 it released itself by a three-paragraph statement made in no case, deciding no dispute, hearing no argument. Either the House was never truly bound, or the Statement was an act it had no power to perform." Discuss, with reference to London Street Tramways, the Practice Statement, and British Railways Board v Herrington. If your answer at the last tutorial was right — that the Lords departed silently long before 1966 — what exactly did the Statement change?
The reading
7 texts this week
No clean answer. The orthodox position — self-imposed practice, alterable by the court that imposed it — is defensible, and must then explain what "bound" meant for sixty-eight years. The contrary — never truly bound — is defensible, and must then explain why the Statement was thought necessary at all, and why departures since have been so rare. He must choose, and the final sentence collects the debt from his own last answer. Word limit: 1,500–2,000 words. Citations in OSCOLA footnotes.
Set . Every item links either to a source Socratess chose, or to a search for it.
Note on this set. Structure fixed 30 August 2026: a Lesson is a fortnight in one file. Session 1 is the reading week — first debate on the reading, the heaviest word-smothering; a student who cannot explain the sense of a word does not understand the debate. Session 2 is the essay week — the paper, then the final hour argued from both angles.
The question
"In 1898 the House of Lords declared itself absolutely bound by its own decisions; in 1966 it released itself by a three-paragraph statement made in no case, deciding no dispute, hearing no argument. Either the House was never truly bound, or the Statement was an act it had no power to perform." Discuss, with reference to London Street Tramways, the Practice Statement, and British Railways Board v Herrington. If your answer at the last tutorial was right — that the Lords departed silently long before 1966 — what exactly did the Statement change?
No clean answer. The orthodox position — self-imposed practice, alterable by the court that imposed it — is defensible, and must then explain what "bound" meant for sixty-eight years. The contrary — never truly bound — is defensible, and must then explain why the Statement was thought necessary at all, and why departures since have been so rare. He must choose, and the final sentence collects the debt from his own last answer. Word limit: 1,500–2,000 words. Citations in OSCOLA footnotes.
Reading (7 items)
Primary
- 1.London Street Tramways Co Ltd v London County Council [1898] AC 375 (HL).
- 2.Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent) [1966] 1 WLR 1234reread; last week it was context, this week it is the text under examination. Every word of its three paragraphs.
- 3.British Railways Board v Herrington [1972] AC 877 (HL), read against the case it departed from, Robert Addie & Sons (Collieries) Ltd v Dumbreck [1929] AC 358 (HL).
Textbook
- 4.Rupert Cross & J.W. Harris, Precedent in English Law (4th edn, Clarendon Press 1991), ch 1.
Articles
- 5.Julius Stone, '1966 and All That! Loosing the Chains of Precedent' (1969) 69 Columbia Law Review 1162.
- 6.A.L. Goodhart, 'Precedent in English and Continental Law' (1934) 50 Law Quarterly Review 40.
- 7.Alan Paterson, The Law Lords (Macmillan 1982)the treatment of how the Lords actually used, and mostly declined to use, the 1966 freedom.
Socratess on this list. Seven items; item 7 is the push, carried on the same terms as before. The fortnight is for reading it properly, not for reading more of it.