John Griffith

John Griffith is Emeritus Professor of Public Law in the University of London.

Letter

My dear, the noise

15 October 1998

I knew the story, located in the Somme, in the middle to late Thirties.
Letter

Age of Consent

22 January 1998

Reviewing Heather James’s book Shakespeare’s Troy, Frank Kermode (LRB, 22 January) refers to the author’s view of the purpose of The Tempest as aligning the ‘theatre with constitutional theory that derives royal authority from the people, who technically have the right to withdraw their consent and leave the prince stranded on a desert island’. No one, in the time of James I, would have known...
Letter

Dangerous Error

8 May 1997

The working of the Constitution of the United Kingdom depends on the relationship between government, Parliament and the judiciary. Since the end of the Eighties, when respect for judges had sunk to a new low, efforts have been made to improve their public image and to enhance their status. Mr Justice Sedley’s article on the common law and the Constitution (LRB, 8 May) is part of this process. Sedley...
Letter
Participating in a dialogue with Lord Lester (Letters, 6 June) is a twisty business. He writes that I do not explain why I believe English judges are uniquely incapable of interpreting and applying a Bill of Rights. I expressed no such belief, nor anything like it. He writes that I do not explain why I regard judges of the European Court of Human Rights as better qualified to protect our basic rights...
Letter

Libertyville

19 December 1991

The Director of Charter 88’s Constitutional Convention, Mr Paul Hirst, writes that his organisation is ‘the one place where a creative dialogue can take place between the different protagonists of change’. He then replies to arguments against a Bill of Rights from a distinguished civil libertarian, Mr Stephen Sedley QC, by imputing to him a mental disease. Is this Charter 88’s idea of dialogue?...

Long March

Martin Pugh, 2 June 1983

The trouble with timely books is that time is apt to run out rather suddenly for them. No doubt when the 20 members of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet planned the essays in Renewal they expected...

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Post-Bourgeois Man

Peter Jenkins, 1 October 1981

He has come a long way. Born the Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, he inevitably became by public-school nickname ‘Wedgie’ and later, by his own socialist deed-poll, plain ‘Tony...

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