This paper is concerned with the way in which the verb occidere was treated in the Lex Aquilia and with the explanation for this.

Professor Dieter Nörr appears to have offered the most recent explanation of the narrow scope given to the verb in the first chapter of the statute. He makes two points. First, he traces the distinction between direct killing (occidere) and indirectly causing death (mortis causam praestare or praebere) to early Greek law and speculates that this distinction was transmitted into Roman law through the Greek schools of rhetoric. Secondly, he suggests that the Lex Cornelia de sicarüs et veneficis included the phrase mortis causam praestare. If true, this second point would show how firmly the distinction had become established. The phrase would also have provided an obvious parallel for the jurists when engaged in interpreting the Lex Aquilia.

I Propose to begin with a word or two about the growth of Appeals and then to say something about the present appellate jurisdictions in this country. I suppose, speaking generally, the man who has a decision given against him has a disposition to be discontented with it, and tries to get another decision if he is satisfied that he is in the right. But I should imagine also that in early days the private litigant had a very small say in the matter whether he should, or should not, have the right of appeal. Before the Judiciary and the Executive were distinguishable, when the act of deciding disputes was an act of government, ordinarily performed by the Chieftain or Ruler though perhaps sometimes delegated to a subordinate, in those days, of course, the judge, being also ruler, there were no appeals, and one can only hope that decisions were satisfactory to everyone concerned. Whether the same persons made good rulers and good judges in the days of the Hebrew Judges I do not know; but I do know that I should be very sorry indeed if the two functions, which are of entirely different kinds, were united nowadays. As soon as a ruler began to delegate his function to a subordinate there can be no question that he would from time to time desire to revise the decisions that were arrived at, partly from self-interest, and partly, one may assume, from a sense of justice, knowing that, or thinking that, the decision was wrong and that he could give a better one. And in that kind of way there would gradually emerge a more or less settled system by which decisions would become the subject of review.

Land registration has long proved a source of concern to the Law Commission. Its Third Report in 1987 recommended significant changes to the substantive law; its Fourth Report subsequently incorporated these changes into a comprehensive draft Land Registration Bill which was intended to replace the Land Registration Act 1925 with a modern, simpler statute.

It is good that the Cambridge Law Faculty has established a Centre for European Legal Studies. In the first place because it is plain that practising lawyers in the future will need to be increasingly aware of European Community Law—whether they are taught it as a separate subject or as a part of specialist areas of the law. In the second place because if, as I also think, Britain should be not only at the heart but also at the head of Europe, if it is in it at all, there are few better ways of preparing our future political and administrative leaders than by a grounding in Community law.

On 14 August 1988 the death occurred of Miss Pamela Banyard of Laxenheath. She had been the victim eighteen months previously of a savage and brutal attack for which her assailant was sent to prison for ten years on conviction of attempted murder and robbery. Why was he not convicted of murder? The answer in the words of the Crown Prosecutor: “We cannot prosecute for murder as she died more than a year and a day after the attack.”