Book Review: Role of the Solicitor-General: Negotiating Law, Politics and the Public Interest
| Author | Yee-Fui Ng |
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917710975c |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
disadvantage. The collection adds urgency to arguments for social justice and empha-
sizes the need for the voices of women to be at the heart of transforming social, cultural
and legal attitudes towards mothers.
SARAH SINGH
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
References
Brown K (2015) Vulnerability and Young People: Care and Social Control in Policy and Practice.
Bristol: The Policy Press.
Hausman B (2003) Mother’s Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture. New York:
Routledge.
GABRIELLE APPLEBY, Role of the Solicitor-General: Negotiating Law, Politics and the Public Interest.
London: Hart Publishing, 2016, pp. 368, ISBN 9781849467124, $140.00 (hbk).
A Solicitor General has a tough and multifaceted job. Not only do Solicitors General
have to be the finest legal minds in public law, they also have to mediate between the
branches of government, including tensions between the executive and judiciary. The
Solicitor General is an advocate and adviser to the hundreds of emanations of the Crown,
including various departments and statutory authorities. In doing their job, they have to
at once display restraint on imposing their own moral views, while defending the inter-
ests of their client, the Crown. At the same time, they may want to apply a broader lens to
consider the long-term interests of the polity and the public interest.
Despite the importance of the Solicitor General as the second highest ranking Law
Officer of the Crown, there is little scholarship on or awareness of the role and functions
of the Solicitor General, which remains obscured in the executive structure of
Westminster systems. As such, Gabrielle Appleby’s book is a welcome and significant
contribution to the field. It would be of interest to public law academics, political
scientists, government lawyers and public servants.
Appleby’s excellent book capably e xamines and analyses the various fa cets of a
Solicitor General’s role. The focus of the book is predominantly on the Australian
position, with a historical and comparative dimension, examining the situation in the
United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States. From this historical and compara-
tive analysis, we can see the different models and possibilities for the relationship
between the two most senior Law Officers in the executive: the Attorney General as
the first Law Officer, and the Solicitor General as the second Law Officer. For instance,
in Australia, the role evolved from its 19th-century colonial roots as a ministerial posi-
tion responsible to Parliament alongside the Attorney General, to the current apolitical
statutory officer model combined with a political and partisan Attorney General. This
can be contrasted with the British model of both the Attorney General and Solicitor
General being parliamentarians who are the ministerial heads of the Law Officers
department. In this vein, it would have b een good to further analyse as to how th e
658 Social & Legal Studies 26(5)
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