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Course Lecturer
Dean Knight
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law
Associate, New Zealand Centre for Public Law
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
PhD Candidate
London School of Economics and Political Science
United Kingdom
Email: dean.knight@vuw.ac.nz
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law
Associate, New Zealand Centre for Public Law
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
PhD Candidate
London School of Economics and Political Science
United Kingdom
Email: dean.knight@vuw.ac.nz
Course Outline
Lord Justice Lawton in Maxwell v Department of Trade and Industry [1974] 2 All ER 122 said:
This course examines the elephantine concept of fairness in the law, along with other contemporary legal issues.
"From time to time ... lawyers and judges have tried to define what constitutes fairness. Like defining an elephant, it is not easy to do, although fairness in practice has the elephantine quality of being easy to recognise. As a result of these efforts a word in common usage has acquired the trappings of legalism: 'acting fairly' has become 'acting in accordance with the rules of natural justice', and on occasion has been dressed up with Latin tags. This phrase in my opinion serves no useful purpose and in recent years it has encouraged lawyers to try to put those who hold inquiries into legal straitjackets.... For the purposes of my judgment I intend to ask myself this simple question: did the [decision-maker] act fairly towards the plaintiff?"
This course examines the elephantine concept of fairness in the law, along with other contemporary legal issues.
Course Resources
- Knight (with Cassie), "The Scope of Judicial Review: Who and What may be Reviewed?"
- Knight, "'I’m Not Gay – Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That!': Are Unwanted Imputations of Gayness Defamatory?"
- Knight, "A Murky Methodology: Standards of Review in Administrative Law"
- Knight, "Ameliorating the Collateral Damage Caused by Collateral Attack in Administrative Law"
- Knight, "An Objectionable Offence: A Critique of the Possession Offence in the Films, Videos, Publications Classification Act 1993"
- Knight, "Brothels, bylaws, prostitutes, and proportionality"
- Knight, "Dunne v Canwest TVWorks Ltd: Enhancing or Undermining the Democratic and Constitutional Balance?"
- Knight, "Local authority decision-making, community views, and Stadium Aotearoa"
- Knight, "Local Democracy and the Consideration of Community Views: Obligation and Observance"
- Knight, "Mapping the Rainbow of Review: Recognising Variable Intensity"
- Knight, "Power to Make Bylaws"
- Knight, "Shaking Our Constitutional Foundations"
- Knight, "Simple, Fair, Discretionary Administrative Law"
- Knight, "The (Continuing) Regulation of Prostitution by Local Authorities"
3 comments:
OMG another heinously long dissent from Thomas J...
I'd like to know the politics behind this from Thomas J at par 152:
"I acknowledge that the Chief Justice has sought to find errors of law in the judgment of the Court of Appeal and, based on an uncompromising perception of the right to freedom of expression, advanced a “narrow” interpretation of the words “disorderly behaviour”."
More amusing though is this from par 159:
"The length of this judgment, for which I apologise, reflects an attempt to do something more than simply “rejig” the balance. I confess, however, that being in a minority in this Court, I have written at length in the hope that what I have to say may be of assistance to a future court."
Having just read about this case for the first time I think it's another example of the judiciary getting out of touch with the rest of the country. I'm inclined to think that if Tipping and co had been one of the Family Court Judges with protesters outside their houses then they would have come down diferently on this one.
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