The Closing Chapter

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Description
This is the last of Lord Denning's four books setting out the way in which he has sought to develop English law in a career spanning nearly four decades on the Bench. In this respect. it completes the series of hooks starting with The Discipline of Law in 1979, and followed successively by The Due Process of Law and the sensational What Next in the Law. The new work contains, in Book One, a sequel to Lord Denning's autobiography, The Family Story. In it he tells with disarming and touching candour of the circumstances of the publication and withdrawal of What Next in the Law and of his decision to retire from the office of Master of the Rolls. He also tells of his activities since retirement, including his advice to householders during the water strike, and the. consternation caused by the judgment in the Court of Appeal in the case of the Sikh Boy's Turban. Book Two contains a fascinating account of some of the leading contentious legal issues of the day, in which he has played a singular part. He discusses the problems of statutory interpretation and explains the legal significance of the new dichotomy between public law and private law as set out in his judgment in O'Reilly v Mackman in 1982. He traces the bumpy course of trade union legislation from 1906 to the present day, and places his own, often contentious, judgments on trade union matters in the context of that legislation. Finally he identifies the series of cases on which he and the Court of Appeal have been, or have appeared to be, on a collision course with the House of Lords. He ends, however, happily enough, with Geo Mitchett Ltd v Finney Seeds Ltd, the last of his cases to go on appeal to the House of Lords, in which his judgment was, for a change, enthusiastically endorsed by the House of Lords.
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Contents
Section One - My Last Months as Master
1.    A calamitous fortnight
2.    The summer term
3.    The last day of the summer term
4.    The long vacation
Section Two - Autumn Leaves
1.    A judge of silk
2.    The cathedral at Winchester
3.    Dinner at the Inner Temple
4.    A luncheon at the Savoy
5.    The cathedral at Norwich
6.    Abortion in the Lords
7.    A look at the Law Lords
8.    The family at Christmas
Section Three - Afterthoughts
1.    Plain English
2.    After Christmas - the water strike
3.    The Sikh boy's turban
Section Four - Statutory Interpretation again to the Fore
Section Five - Public and Private Law - A New Dichotomy
1.    The coming of judicial review
2.    A notable difference
3.    Law and politics
4.    Remedies
5.    Postscript
Section Six - Trade Unions
1.    Up to the 1906 Act
2.    The Industrial Relations Act 1971
3.    The 1974 and 1976 Acts
4.    New legislation imperative
5.    The 1980 Act
6.    The closed shop
7.    Trade Unions go 'poaching'
8.    The European Convention
Section Seven - Conflicts in the Courts
1.    Locus standi
2.    Liberty of the subject
3.    The Mareva up to date
4.    Who can get a Mareva?
5.    Anton filler up to date
6.    Delay in arbitrations
7.    Withdrawal clauses in charterparties
8.    High Trees up to date
9.    Interlocutory injunctions up to date
10.  The difference in approach
11.  Exemption clauses up to date
Epilogue
Index
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Author Details
Rt. Hon. Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls