Bringing Cinderella to the Ball: Teaching Criminal Law in Context
| Published date | 01 September 1995 |
| Date | 01 September 1995 |
| Author | Lindsay Farmer |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1995.tb02050.x |
REVIEW
ARTICLE
Bringing Cinderella to the Ball: Teaching Criminal
Law in Context
Lindsay
Farmer”
Alan
Norrie,
Crime, Reason and History:
A
Critical Introduction to Criminal
Law,
London: Weidenfeld
&
Nicolson,
1993,
xx
+
279
pp, pb
f16.95.
I
Criminal law, we have been told, is the ‘Cinderella subject’ of the legal academy,’
always left at home to sweep the fireplace while the ugly sisters, contract and tort,
dress themselves up in fancy theories and go to the ball. Criminal law is isolated
and unappreciated, its charms hidden behind a drab black-letter appearance. Its
true character, by implication, is something else, requiring the touch of a fairy
godmother to transform the law
so
that, in a fairy tale ending, it may take up its
rightful place
in
the heart of legal study.
What is
so
special about criminal law? What are these hidden charms?
In
part,
so
the argument goes, the criminal law has been unfairly regarded as overly practical
and theoretically uninteresting. It is a species of moral and political philosophy, or
at least it is a proper subject for philosophical study, and therefore fitting material
for students cutting their conceptual teeth. But more than this, it is claimed to offer
an unparalleled prospect for interdisciplinary study, richer and more varied than
any
other element of the legal curriculum. The promise of the criminal law is seen
in the fact that, while it may
be
technical, concerned with complex institutional
arrangements, related to other branches of the law, and reliant on a complex body
of procedural and evidential rules, it can at the same time be dressed up in
sophisticated issues of normative theory.2 The rags and pumpkins of doctrine and
practice can thus, with a wave of the magic wand, take on the lines of an elegant
ball gown
or
the delicate structure of a glass coach as the different elements of the
subject are woven together. But, the lament goes, while
this
may be every
academic’s dream, it is all too rarely attempted. The teaching
of
criminal law for
the most part remains locked into an obsession with appellate decisions, as teachers
of criminal law (would-be Prince Charmings) construct doctrinal theories as fine
and elegant as a glass slipper and then try to shoehorn the lumpy, misshapen foot of
the law inside. The course continues to be dominated by the study of general
theories of liability and, though the importance of ‘context’ is now acknowledged,
it continues to have a rather shadowy presence. It is this question
-
how the
criminal law should be taught (and Cinderella be brought to the ball)
-
that is the
subject of this essay.
I
shall argue that the divide between law and context is
~~
*Department
of
Law, Birkbeck College, University
of
London.
Thanks to Matthew Weait, Niki Lacey
and
especially Alan Nome.
1
2
ibid
pp 195-
199.
Tur, ‘Criminal Law
and
Legal Theory’ in Twining
(ed),
Legal
Theory
and
the Common
Law
(Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1986) p 195.
@
The
Modem Law Review Limited
1995
(MLR
585,
September). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
I08
Cowley Road,
Oxford
OX4
1JF
and
238
Main
Street,
Cambridge, MA
02142,
USA.
756
To continue reading
Request your trial