25 October 2026
Departing openly: what the Supreme Court does with the 1966 power — *Knauer v Ministry of Justice* read against Lord Reed's own account of the Court's practice
Essay due Saturday 31 October.
"In Knauer v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 9 the Supreme Court said it would not depart from an earlier decision merely because it would have decided it differently — and then departed from two. Is the line it drew a limit on the 1966 power, or a disguise for its absence? If the Statement changed only the name, as your essay argued, what did Knauer change?"
The reading
2 texts this week
No clean answer. The orthodox position — the Court drew a real line, between a decision that was wrong and a decision whose reasoning has been undermined, and the line is the discipline the Statement promised — is defensible, and must then say what a "disguise" would look like if this is not one. The contrary — that any line a court draws for itself it can move, so the line is the name and nothing more — is defensible, and must then explain why the Court bothered to draw it, and why Parliament has let it. He must choose, and the last sentence collects the debt from his own essay. Length: 250–500 words. Every authority named gets an OSCOLA footnote, and every name is verified against the report before the note leaves his desk. Last fortnight's footnote 1 named a case that does not exist; a second one caps the note at a fail.
Set 25 October 2026. Every item links either to a source Socratess chose, or to a search for it.
Note on this set. Weekly format, adopted 25 October 2026 on his proposal: one Lesson is one week. Two items — a primary text and a piece about it. A position note of 250–500 words, one claim, one authority, one objection answered, due Saturday 21:00 and marked on precision alone. One hour on Sunday: verification from both items at the top, elenchus, and the flip. Promotion stays on the hour. A longer essay on a harder question once a month, marked on the five criteria. Jurisprudence is out of the arc; the method continues on tort and contract cases. Listening papers are issued on request while his allowance is low.
- Set
- 25 October 2026
- Essay due
- 31 October 2026
- Tutorial
- 1 November 2026
The question
"In Knauer v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 9 the Supreme Court said it would not depart from an earlier decision merely because it would have decided it differently — and then departed from two. Is the line it drew a limit on the 1966 power, or a disguise for its absence? If the Statement changed only the name, as your essay argued, what did Knauer change?"
No clean answer. The orthodox position — the Court drew a real line, between a decision that was wrong and a decision whose reasoning has been undermined, and the line is the discipline the Statement promised — is defensible, and must then say what a "disguise" would look like if this is not one. The contrary — that any line a court draws for itself it can move, so the line is the name and nothing more — is defensible, and must then explain why the Court bothered to draw it, and why Parliament has let it. He must choose, and the last sentence collects the debt from his own essay. Length: 250–500 words. Every authority named gets an OSCOLA footnote, and every name is verified against the report before the note leaves his desk. Last fortnight's footnote 1 named a case that does not exist; a second one caps the note at a fail.
Reading (2 items)
Primary
- 1.Knauer v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 9the whole judgment, which is short: the facts in a paragraph, then the two decisions departed from and the paragraphs on why the Court may depart and why it would not do so merely for disagreeing. Note what the Court says about the 1966 Statement by name.
Commentary
- 2.Lord Reed, "Departing from Precedent: The Experience of the UK Supreme Court", lecture to the International Conference on Implementation of the Rule of Law, 20 January 2023on the Supreme Court's speeches page. Read it for the reasons the Court gives itself, and count how many of them are in the Statement's own words.
Socratess on this list. Two items. The first is the case; the second is a judge explaining the case's kind. The verification at the top of the hour is from both.