Laying down the law
Hubert Picarda Counsel: 114y Lord, there is no English case in point, but there is an American authority. .
Judge: 'No thank youl'
The judge in question was approaching retirement. Perhaps understandably he did not wish to learn new tricks. But judges now are, fortunately, more broad-minded and will look at relevant overseas cases. One litmus test, therefore, of a good new law
book or new edition of one is: does it cover relevant overseas cases? By this and most other criteria William Gough's Company Charges (Butterworths £25.00) scores very heavily. Originally a doctoral thesis, it suffers only from the convoluted and pompous style in which many such theses are written. This is a pity because the subject— fixed and floating charges over company property — is highly technical, and demands clear simple English. But the book is a work of very considerable industry and scholarship.
It cites and discusses, for example, Australasian cases. Another good feature is the reference to periodical literature and other textbooks. The only obvious absentee is Mr John Farrar's %tide on floating charges in the 1976 Conveyancer. And unaccountably the author refers to the 1962 and not the 1973 edition of Sykes' Law of Securities. The decision not to discuss the debenture holder's remedy of receivership can be remedied. This important monograph will prove valuable to all concerned with company charges and a further edition can be predicted. The book prompts a further thought. It is refreshing that academics are exploring and mapping badly charted areas of the law. There are many talents at the universities which deserve leave of absence from contract, tort, crime and land law. Lawyers dealing intermittently with compulsorY purchase law have for the past six years had cause to be grateful for the stylish account of' the subject in the Law of Compulsory Purchase and Compensation by Keith Davies of Reading University. A new edition of this welcome pathfinder has just appeared (Butterworths £11.00; paper £7.50). Butterworths have at the same time published a major new work directed to practitioners and students. With more pages at its disposal Compulsory Acquis' ition and Compensation (Butterworths £27.00) by Sir Frederick Corfield and Robert Carnwath naturally ranges more widely. The subject is one which benefits greatly from a narrative approach e spec ialiY where, as here, that approach is so lucid.
Compulsory purchase is only one example of an area of law which can be usefully subjected to a pincer attack by academic and practitioner authors. Some areas are so daunting that only a team could conquer them. One thinks here of trusts, company law and employment law. Fortunately for those concerned with the law of social security, and they include trade union officials, civil servants and employers as well as lawyers, there is now a magisterial new work of nearly 700 pages by two Oxford dons. Anthony Ogus and Eric Barendt were obviously determined not to write a railway timetable of a bOok. The readability of their Law of Social Security (Butterworths £17.50; paper £12.00) is the consequence of a shared clarity of prose style and of plentiful and appropriate sub-division of a massive subject. And there is much here to interest the general reader. The history and objectives of the legislation, the political undertones and policy considerations are all fully, even entertainingly, explored. For this purpose Hansard has been ransacked; together with many government and other reports. Lord Scarman's expectation, voiced in his foreword, that the book will become one of the indispensable textbooks of the law is surely well-founded. Potter and Monroe's Tax Planning (Sweet and Maxwell £16.00) is a well estab lished classic in its field. The excuse for reviewing the latest edition is that Charles Potter QC has resumed co-editorship. His presence in the saddle is evidenced by a Preface of notable irony. The scope for tax avoidance is diminishing fast. But the new edition has taken account of all the relevant changes so that there has been much rewriting, all of it trenchant. A hilarious mix-up on Pages 179 and 181 has added a new dimension to the debate on trusts, powers and Powers in the nature of a trust. Subparagraphs (6) and (7) on the later page Should be on the earlier one. , Lastly a book of more general interest: The Lawyer and Justice (Sweet and Maxwell £6.00) edited by Professor Brian Harvey. This is an anthology of presidential addresses delivered by judges and one Or two jurists to the Holdsworth Club at Birmingham University. The excuse is the Club's golden anniversary. The roll-call of Presidents includes most of the legal luminaries of the period, and selection must have been an invidious task. So too is the Choice of what to mention here.
The Independence of the Judiciary' by Lord Justice Denning in 1950 is an early and ringing proclamation of a faith which the present Master of the Rolls has consistently stressed. 'Law and Economics' is a felicitously worded contribution by Lord Wilberforce on a theme seldom explicitly considered by the judiciary. Lord Hailsham, father and son, are represented on The Role of the Lord Chancellor.' Nor are Wit and humour lacking. There is a rare extra-curial speech by Lord Russell of Killowen, 'Behind the Judicial Curtain', which discusses some misconceptions about the Practicalities governing appellate judgments. The carefully observed processes of Lords Justices Frog, Toad and Slug are a delight. Nor will readers of Miscellanyat-Law be disappointed by the deft touches in 'The Law Lecture'.
The published thoughts and words of most judges are confined to their legal Judgments. These talks, albeit to a specialist audience and on solemn and legal themes, are sufficiently different to arouse literary curiosity. Clearly not all judicial (and pre-judicial) lives are worth autobiographies. But this reviewer must be one of many who would welcome Memoirs by one or two of the living ex-Presidents of the Holdsworth Club.
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