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Reflections on continental European Supreme Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John Bell
John Bell*
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
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Abstract

The Government's Consultation Paper Constitutional Reform: A Supreme Court for the United Kingdom (July 2003) is interesting in that it is written as an argument for a technical ‘fix’. The argument essentially is that we need to separate the Appellate Committee from the political House of Lords and abolish the Lord Chancellor. The discussion then focuses on how this can be done with the minimum change to the jurisdiction and composition of the existing courts. There is no attempt at strategic thinking. It is constitutional reform by way of incremental change. What I want to do here is to use some continental European experiences to suggest a number of strategic questions which either do not appear in the Consultation Paper from the Department of Constitutional Affairs or which are handled too rapidly, but which are important for the future functioning of a Supreme Court. There are only a limited number of lessons which can be learnt from any comparative survey. In this inquiry, as in many, the contrasts between legal systems only raise questions, rather than offering solutions. It is an agenda-setting exercise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1-2 , March 2004 , pp. 156 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2004

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References

1. Ministry of Justice Annuaire statistique de la Justice (2003) pp 23 and 137.

2. Lord Chancellor's Department Judicial Statistics Annual Report 2001 (2002) table 1.4.

3. L N Brown and J Bell French Administrative Law (London, 5th edn, 1998) ch 6.

4. S Jägerskiöld in S Strömholm (ed) An Introduction to Swedish Law (Stockholm, 1981) pp 75, 85–86; also M Bodgan (ed) Swedish Law in the New Millennium (Stockholm, 2000) pp 95–98.

5. Originally appeal lay to the King-in-Council (statsad). See generally, Jägerskiöld, n 4 above, p 102.

6. Sporrong and Lönrzroth v Sweden (1982) 5 EHRR 35; and Pudas v Sweden (1988) 10 EHRR 380.

7. See generally, N Foster and S Sule German Legal System and Laws (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2002) pp 66–76.

8. Foster and Sule, n 7 above, p 75.

9. E Merino-Blanco The Spanish Legal System (London, 1996) pp 78–94.

10. Supreme Court statistics, available at http://www.poderjudicial.es/tribunalsupremo.

11. Cf R Munday ‘All for One and One for All: The Rise to Prominence of the Composite Judgment within the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal’ [2002] CLJ 321.

12. Art 61 LOPJ.

13. See D N MacCormick and R S Summers Interpreting Precedents (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1997) ch 13.

14. A Tune ‘Les cows suprees: synthèse’ (1978) 30 Revue internationale de droit comparé 5 at 12.

15. On cassation sans renvoi, see J Bell, S Boyron and S Whittaker Principles of French Law (Oxford, 1998) pp 47–48.

16. Tunc, n 14 above.

17. On more recent figures, see p 156 above.

18. Tunc, n 14 above, at 17.

19. Final Report of the Committee on Supreme Court Practice and Procedure (Cmd 8878, 1953) section IX; C Chakrabarti, J Stephens and C Gallagher ‘Whose Cost the Public Interest?’ [2003] PL 697.

20. See Bell, Boyron and Whittaker, n 15 above, p 47.

21. L Favoreu Les cours constitutionnelles (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 3rd edn, 1996) pp 5–6.

22. It is worthwhile noting that the new Finnish Constitution (2000) for the first time introduces a system of judicial review of legislation (albeit only following the Swedish model where judges only can strike down laws that they find ‘manifestly’ unconstitutional) as a supplement to the prevailing (and presumably quite effective) ‘pre-view’ control system in the hands of the standing committee on constitutional affairs in the Finnish Parliament.

23. On Norway, see R Slagstad in E Smith Constitutional Justice under Old Constitutions (The Hague: Kluwer, 1995) p 81; also C Smith ‘Judicial Review of Parliamentary Legislation: Norway as a European Pioneer’ [2000] PL 595. On Sweden see J Nergelius in Bogdan, n 4 above, ch 3.

24. Or, in Germany, soon thereafter.

25. For example, see CE 28 July 2000, Tete, AJDA 2000, 854; CE Ass, 11 July 2001, Préaud, AJDA 2001, 841.

26. Brown v Stott (Procurator Fiscal of Dunfermline) [2001] 2 All ER 97.

27. See Brown and Bell, n 3 above, pp 64–67; N Questiaux ‘Administration and the Rule of Law: The Preventive Role of the French Conseil d'Etat’ [1995] PL 247 and ‘Do the Opinions expressed by the Conseil d'Etat in its capacity as legal advisor to the Government influence policy?’ (2000) 49 ICLQ 672.

28. Royal College of Nursing v DHSS [1981] AC 800.

29. K-G Algotsson ‘Lagradet, rättstaten och demokratin’ in T Håstad and L Lewin Politik och Juridik. Grundlagen inför 2000 (Stockholm, 2000) p 37.