The purpose of the present study is to consider the constitutional significance of four House of Lords decisions which raise fundamental questions about the legal status of the Executive branch of government in the United Kingdom and its relationship to the courts. The decisions are those in: Burmah Oil Co. Ltd. v. Lord Advocate [1965] A.C. 75; [1964] 2 All E.R. 348; Carl Zeiss Stiftung v. Rayner & Keeler Ltd. (No. 2) [1967] 1 A.C. 853; [1966] 2 All E.R. 536; Conway v. Rimmer [1968] A.C. 910; [1968] 1 All E.R. 874; Nissan v. Attorney-General [1970] A.C. 179; [1969] 1 All E.R. 629.

The two manuals here referred to are known respectively as the Ecloga and the Procheiros Nomos. They are distinguished from all others subsequently edited by private jurists or the Colleges of Notaries by the fact that they were issued throught the Imperial Chancery in the name and by the authority of the Sovrans. They begin like an English Act of Parliament, by a short title and a preamble in which the Emperors address their subjects in the first person plural, indicating the occasion and announcing the purpose of their new exposition of law. They use the kind of official Romaic Greek affected by the antigrapheis or official draftsmen of the period. The language is simple and direct and the student will have no difficulty in interpreting it when he has mastered the vocabulary.