2025 Sir David Williams Lecture: 'Neither Parliamentary Sovereignty nor Judicial Supremacy: The Rule of Law as the Rule of Common Right and Reason'

The 2025 Sir David Williams lecture will be given by Professor Trevor Allan FBA.

The standard opposition between Parliamentary sovereignty and judicial supremacy presents a false dichotomy. We need not choose between them but should be guided instead by an appropriately sophisticated account of the Rule of Law. It is an account suggested by Coke’s observation that an Act of Parliament made ‘against common right and reason’ would be void at common law. We may understand Coke’s remark as a point about statutory interpretation: what cannot reasonably be understood as a contribution to justice, in the particular circumstances arising, cannot affect what the law requires. The familiar focus on judicial obedience or disobedience to statute is confused and misguided: it treats law as the product of an act of will rather than reasoned deliberation and judgment. A statute’s contribution to the corpus juris depends on assigning it a role within the law as a whole, underpinned and illuminated by the ideal of the Rule of Law.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Faculty atrium.

Enquiries to: cpl@law.cam.ac.uk

Tickets are free but booking is required.

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