Hart Publishing announces
Entick v Carrington: 250 Years of the Rule of Law, edited by
Adam Tomkins, John Millar Professor of Public Law at the
University of Glasgow, and
Paul Scott, Lecturer in Public Law at the
University of Southampton.
Entick v Carrington is one of the canons of English public law and in 2015 it is 250 years old. In 1762 the Earl of Halifax, one of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State, despatched Nathan Carrington and three other of the King’s messengers to John Entick’s house in Stepney. They broke into his house, seizing his papers and causing significant damage. Why? Because he was said to have written seditious papers published in the Monitor. Entick sued Carrington and the other messengers for trespass. The defendants argued that the Earl of Halifax had given them legal authority to act as they had. Lord Camden ruled firmly in Entick’s favour, holding that the warrant of a Secretary of State could not render lawful actions such as these which were otherwise unlawful.
The case is a canonical statement of the common law’s commitment to the constitutional principle of the rule of law. In this collection, leading public lawyers reflect on the history of the case, the enduring importance of the legal principles for which it stands, and the broader implications of Entick v Carrington 250 years on.
TOC after the jump.
Introduction, Adam Tomkins and Paul Scott
1. The Politics and People of
Entick v Carrington, David Feldman
2. Revisiting
Entick v Carrington: Seditious Libel and State Security Laws in Eighteenth-Century England, Tom Hickman
3. Entick and Carrington, the Propaganda Wars and Liberty of the Press, Jacob Rowbottom
4. Was
Entick v Carrington a Landmark? Timothy Endicott
5.
Entick v Carrington and the Legal Protection of Property, Paul Scott
6. The Authority of
Entick v Carrington, Adam Tomkins
7. Law, Liberty and
Entick v Carrington, Denis Baranger
8.
Entick v Carrington in Scots Law, Tom Mullen
Appendix:
Entick v Carrington (1765) 19 State Trials 1029
