The Choice between Judicial and Administrative Tribunals and the Separation of Powers

In his Hamlyn Lectures Lord Scarman ventured to suggest that the common law as developed by the judiciary had, by reason of its preoccupation with the defence of private property and distributive justice as between individuals, and its relative lack of concern with public law (meaning the law governing the rights and obligations of the state), come to play a diminishing role in the governance of society. He condemned what he described as “an influential body of legal opinion which would confine the role of the courts and the general law to the interpretation of the statutes and the statutory instruments which are the legal framework of the system”; and which would exclude those courts “from reviewing the merits of a decision”.