The Politics of the Common Law: Perspectives, Rights, Processes, Institutions By Adam Gearey, Wayne Morrison and Robert Jago

• Author: Richard Scragg
• Position: Teaching Fellow, School of Law, University of Auckland
• Pages: 182-184

182

BOOK REVIEW

THE POLITICS OF THE COMMON LAW: PERSPECTIVES,

RIGHTS, PROCESSES, INSTITUTIONS

B A G, W M  R J,

R, L, ,  

R J S*

In 2009 Gearey, Morrison and Jago published a remarkable book, e

Politics of the Common Law. is year they have published a second edition,

in which they have rened their ideas further. is is a book of interest to

common law yers throughout the world.

e new edition is shorter than the rst, 362 pages compared with 416

originally, although at 17 chapters it contains one more than the original.

In terms of the authors rening their ideas, there has been much rewriting

and restructuring of material with chapters renamed accordingly, where

appropriate: chapter 6 in the original, ‘Racism and Law: “No Dogs, No Black s,

No Irish”’ has become chapter 5 in the second edition, ‘e postcolonial, the

visible and the invisible: the normal and the exceptional’.

e book is of particular interest to New Zealand lawyers because New

Zealand gures prominently in it. In addition, although it is an “English”

book it is about the common law and what it says about the common law

applies wherever the common law exists around the world. is reects the

experience of the authors. Professor Gearey of Birkbeck College, University

of London, has also had visiting professorships in Uganda, South Africa

and Costa Rica and been a visiting fellow at the University of California,

Berkeley. Robert Jago is Deputy Head of Law at the University of Surrey

and teaches Public Law at Hong Kong University’s School of Professional

and Continuing Education. Wayne Morrison provides the New Zealand

connection. A University of Canterbury graduate, he is a Professor of Law

at Queen Mary, University of London and for many years was the Director

of the University of London’s International Programmes for Law, a position

which gave him teaching experience throughout the common law world.

Chapter 3 of the book, “As a system…the common law is a thing merely

imaginary” begins in a lecture theatre at the University of Canterbury in

Christchurch in the 1970s.

e book is constructed around three themes. e rst is a concern with

legal culture in a context of a post-colonial world. e second concerns

the politics of the judiciary and the legitimacy of the common law. e

third “confronts the material realities of civil and criminal procedure”.

*Teaching Fellow, School of Law, Universit y of Auckland