THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
Department of Law
HKC241/2
pw Mr Patey's
Teleletter ŏ 8/5
of
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Hong Kong 20-22 June 1991
HUMAN RIGHTS: THE ROLE OF THE JUDGE
The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG*
Australia
THE COMMON LAW: FLOWER OF EMPIRE
dis Barrett
Da
you
21
Many thanks तौड 15/5
want to glance
・by one of the ICJ judgen
who will visit the next
month.
PMA|S.
Back to me.
The common law of England is a resilient plant. Spread
by English navigators,
administrators to the four
adventurers
and
colonial
corners of the world, it
It
flourishes. It outlives the rule of the English Crown. It
survives revolutions, as the courts of the former American
colonies and settlements demonstrated after 1776.
survives the departure, on the last ship or train home, of
the bemedalled, bewigged and befeathered colonial judges and
officials who administered it. So much is shown by the daily
working of courts from Antigua to Zimbabwe. It survives even
the replacement of the English
the English language as the medium of
curial communication. It remains, even where there was
bitter hatred of the English rulers who imposed their system
of law. The fidelity to the common law of the courts of
Ireland and of other resistant peoples show as much.
elbows its aggressive way into the courtroom practices of
It
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