Religion and law round up – 17th August

Not all that much that’s specifically religious this week, but there was some interesting legal stuff… 

Lord Neuberger on the ECtHR, the judicial process – and sausages  

The Supreme Court has released the text of two fascinating speeches which its President delivered recently at conferences in Sydney and Victoria.

In The role of judges in human rights jurisprudence: a comparison of the Australian and UK experience Lord Neuberger makes various important points on the relationship between the UK courts and Strasbourg:

“Save where we feel that Strasbourg has misunderstood or misappreciated our common law system, we UK judges have … sometimes been too ready to assume that a decision, even a single decision of a section of that court, represents the law according to Strasbourg, and accordingly to follow it. That approach is attributable to our common law attitude to precedent … I think we may sometimes have been too ready to treat Strasbourg court decisions as if they were determinations by a UK court whose decisions were binding on us” [para 35]. Continue reading