Blom-Cooper on UK Public Inquiries

Louis Blom-Cooper QC has published Public Inquiries: Wrong Route on Bloody Sunday with  Hart Publishing. From the press:

Throughout the twentieth century, administrations have wrestled with allaying public concern over national disasters and social scandals. This book seeks to describe historically the use of public inquiries, and demonstrates why their methods continued to deploy until 1998 the ingrained habits of lawyers, particularly by issuing warning letters in order to safeguard witnesses who might be to blame. Under the influence of Lord Justice Salmon, the vital concern about systems and services allotted to social problems was relegated to the identification of individual blameworthiness. The book explains why the last inquiry under that system, into the events of 'Bloody Sunday' under Lord Saville's chairmanship, cost £200 million and took twelve and a half years (instead of two years). 'Never again', was the Government's muted cry as the method of investigating the public concern was eventually replaced by the Inquiries Act 2005, by common consent a good piece of legislation. The overriding principle of fairness to witnesses was confirmed by Parliament to those who are 'core participants' to the event, but with limited rights to participate. The public inquiry, the author asserts, is now publicly administered as a Commission of Inquiry, and is correctly regarded as a branch of public administration that focuses on the systemic question of what went wrong, as opposed to which individuals were to blame.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

Part I: Public Inquiries: Introduction

1. Concern for Scandals and Disasters

2. Early Beginnings: Corruption and Maladministration

Part II: The Principles of Public Inquiries

3. The Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry 1966 (the Salmon Commission)

4. The Jurisprudence of Public Inquiries

Part III: Bloody Sunday; Second Time Around 1998–2010

5. The Wrong Turn in 1998: A Final Dose of Inappropriate Legalism

6. The Lapse of Time: Assessment of Evidence

7. The Unexplained Circumstances

Part IV: The Inquiries Act 2005

8. An Analysis of the Act of 2005: An Aspect of Public Administration

9. The Chairing of Commissions: Horses for Courses

10. Counsel to the Inquiry, Statutory and Non-statutory

11. Safeguards for Witnesses

12. Chilcot-Maxwellisation-Saville: The Problem of Delay

13. Model Inquiries: Hillsborough (1989) and Litvinenko (2015)

Part V: Final Thoughts

14. Conclusion

15. Postscript-Lessons Learned, or Another Wrong Turn?

You can read more about the book here.

Bennett's latest Australian judicial biography

Federation Press has published Sir Frederick Darley: Sixth Chief Justice of New South Wales 1886-1910 by John Michael Bennett, AM. This is the fifteenth volume in Bennett’s series on judicial lives, a project he began as Senior Research Fellow in Law at the Australian National University four decades ago. From the press:

J M Bennett’s Sir Frederick Darley, the new biography in his acclaimed "Lives of the Australian Chief Justices" series, describes in fascinating detail one of the most extraordinary episodes in Australian judicial history. In November 1886, the circumstances being unprecedented, New South Wales had three successive Chief Justices. 

On 4 November Sir James Martin died in office. Attorney-General Want, pressing a false claim to the vacancy, nevertheless declined it. The salary was too low. The great orator W B Dalley, QC, also rejected the position. His health was failing. F M Darley, QC, was immediately approached, but having a large family to support, he also declined. The government turned to Julian Salomons, QC, who accepted and was gazetted. Almost immediately, without taking his seat, he resigned for the extraordinary reasons disclosed in Dr Bennett’s fascinating chapter on the “Phantom Chief Justice”. A perplexed government urged Darley’s reconsideration. He did so reluctantly, serving from 29 November at great financial sacrifice. As the Hon Keith Mason, AC, QC, notes in his insightful foreword, Darley’s reluctance to serve was ultimately “matched only by his reluctance to relinquish the role over 20 years later”. 

Richly detailed chapters trace Darley’s progression from birth and education in Ireland to Bar practice there at a time when too many lawyers competed for too little work. Darley migrated to Sydney, succeeding beyond his wildest hopes to build a preeminent practice, command a fortune and become a Legislative Councillor. 

Always regarding Australia as his “adopted country”, he retained his “Irishness” to the end. With characteristic care and precision, the author reviews Darley’s judicial career, his distinguished presidency over the Supreme Court in difficult years, and his work administering the colony on many occasions as Lieutenant-Governor. 

Darley might well have retired in 1902 when he accepted a place on the English Royal Commission inquiring into the poor military performance in the Boer War. But despite illness, and resistance to social and industrial change, he persevered on the bench until his death in 1910.

Praise for the book:

“Frederick Darley was a prominent barrister, influential Legislative Councillor, Chief Justice of New South Wales, and Lieutenant-Governor. Darley's career has largely been overlooked and underestimated until this exceptional work by the esteemed author and legal historian Dr Bennett…In this book, Dr Bennett gives us a rare insight into the toll and sacrifice of judicial office. Further, in recounting Darley's work in protecting the authority of the Court itself as an institution, he gives us a unique perspective of the friction and tension that arises between the judicial arm of government and the Executive, as well as between the court and the media.”  -Basem Seif

“Darley became such a successful “economic immigrant” that he was reluctant to sacrifice his large earnings as a barrister for the salary of Chief Justice. (The book contains a cartoon from Bulletin showing Darley about to enter the court, carrying a huge bag labelled “Income 7000 pounds per year”, being met by an attendant who warns him “If you go in there you’ll have to leave at least half of that bundle behind”.) But eventually, after several of his colleagues declined the offer, he was persuaded to accept. He was to prove just
as reluctant to give up the office in the early twentieth century….This book is a worthy addition to J M Bennett’s extraordinary collection of judicial portraits.” –Graham Fricke

Full information is available here.

Cahillane on the Irish Free State Constitution

Out with Manchester University Press is Drafting the Irish Free State Constitution by Laura Cahillane, University of Limerick. From the publisher:

Drafting the Irish Free State Constitution challenges the myths surrounding the Irish Free Constitution by analysing the document in its proper historical context, by looking at how the Constitution was drafted and elucidating the true nature of the document. It examines the reasons why the Constitution did not function as anticipated and investigates whether the failures of the document can be attributed to errors of judgement in the drafting process or to subsequent events and treatment of the document. 

As well as giving a comprehensive account of the drafting stages and an analysis of the three alternative drafts for the first time, the book considers the intellectual influences behind the Constitution and the central themes of the document. This work constitutes a new look at this historic document through a legal lens and the analysis benefits from the advantage of hindsight as well as from the fact that the archival material is now available.

Here is the TOC:

Foreword by Mr Justice Gerard Hogan

Introduction

1. The Constitution Committee and the beginning of the drafting process

2. The drafts

3. Consideration by the government of the three drafts

4. British reaction to the draft constitution

5. Debates in the constituent assembly

6. Themes and influences

7. The people's constitution

8. Anti-party politics

9. The legacy of the Irish Free State Constitution

Conclusion

Further information is available here.