CPL Seminar: 'Conflicting Statutes'

Speaker: Dr Asif Hameed, Selwyn College

This seminar is open to all LLM, MCL and PhD students, Faculty members and Faculty visitors.

Abstract: According to William Wade, an ‘orthodox English lawyer’ would argue that where two Acts of Parliament are conflicting, it is an ‘invariable rule’ that the later Act takes priority. I will call this the Orthodox View. Two classic judicial decisions that are commonly cited in support of the Orthodox View are Vauxhall Estates [1932] and Ellen Street Estates [1934]. These cases are familiar to every law student. In this paper I will argue that there is reason to doubt the Orthodox View. I will discuss an earlier case, Corporation of Blackpool v Starr Estate [1922], in which the requirements of an earlier statute took priority over those of a later statute – or so I will suggest. I will also sketch some implications for the debate about the law-making competence of Parliament.