A Special Relationship? American Influences on Judicial Review in England

Abstract

Abstract On the surface, our common legal heritage does seem to point to a ‘special relationship’ between British and American lawyers. It has created a common vocabulary which permits us to communicate with each other in a way which frequently proves more difficult outside the boundaries of the common law. We can instantly grasp the implications of concepts like ‘substantive due process or ‘natural justice’, even if the precise nuances may escape us. Habeas corpus is a shared inheritance4 and the term locus standi does not need translating, though we must be careful not to assume identity of meaning. We can talk until well into the present’ century of a common corpus of authoritative writing. Blackstone’s Commentaries were the settlers' legal Bible and many later texts were treated as a common legal resource. Austin’s theory of sovereignty, however unsuited to the American context, was claimed by Gray as the basis of his own jurisprudential writing6 and its influence may have penetrated further into American realism through the great Holmes.