CPLC Seminar: 'The Paradox of Tests and Discretion' / 'The Authority and Role of Antiquity in Modern Law'

Speaker: Liron Schmilovits, University of Cambridge: 'The Paradox of Tests and Discretion'

The law is made up of tests. Judges formulate tests to determine whether a legal requirement has been satisfied. This proposed project shines the spotlight on the test as a tool of adjudication. It considers the nature of tests and proceeds to evaluate their quality in English private law. It is suggested that many tests in our law are ineffective: they do not fulfil the function of a test. The presentation will set out the source of this (perceived) problem, potential counter-arguments, and a range of solutions. These questions and answers revolve around the paradoxical relationship between tests and discretion, which has given this presentation its name. Discretion is at once indispensable to, and destructive of, legal tests. This Catch-22 has implications beyond private law. It goes to the heart of the rule of law. For to obey the law, we must know what it means.

Speaker: Dr David Waddilove, University of Cambridge: 'The Authority and Role of Antiquity in Modern Law'

Why should a judge or legal scholar worry about the past? Of course there is precedent, and this must be followed, but such a straightforward concept need not unduly detain legal thinking. The legal past may have some interest in the same way that all history does, but in a busy, complex, and rapidly changing world, normative arguments should be the focus of legal thinking. Understanding the legal past is consequently an activity on the margins of serious legal thinking; it is a luxury. Or so the argument goes. This talk will challenge that view. It will first attempt to unpack why a widespread but implicit shift in the general regard for the significance and relevance of history within law, both academic and in practice, has taken place over the last fifty to one-hundred years. It will then attempt to provide an intellectually rigorous defence of the significance of legal history by providing a new conception of the authority and role of antiquity in modern law.

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