Correspondence
| Published date | 01 November 1974 |
| Date | 01 November 1974 |
| Author | Winifred Holland |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1974.tb02413.x |
Nov.
1974
REVIEWS
719
CONSUMER
PROTECTION EXPERIMENTS
IN
SWEDEN.
By
DONALD
B.
KING.
[Rothman
&
Co.
(U.S.A.).
1974.
115
pp. including
appendix.
$6.50.1
BEAIUNO
in mind the admiration excited in this country for Sweden’s social
democracy, this text
serves
as
a
useful (though unintended) corrective to an
excessive idolatry.
We are told
of
an Act ,prohibiting Improper Terms of Contract,
a
Market
Court Act and Marketing Practiccs Act, all contained in
a
useful (if,
at
times,
inelegantly translated) statutory appendix. These statutes between them
create
a
Consumer Ombudsman who hauls businessmen before
a
Marketing
Court
to
justify, if they can, allegedly unfair marketing practices.
Excellent ideas, and not to be denigrated one
jot.
But consumer protection
has been considerably looked to here of late; thc Office
of
Fair Trading, the
powers of the Director General of
Fair
Trading, and the manifold aspects to
the Fair Trdng Ad,
suffer
not
at
all
in
comparison.
SometSrnes overwritten, and occasionally put in language that one faintly
suspects has been translated from Swedish, this book succeeds in its limited
aim: to prewnt
a
neat little pritner on an aspect of Swedish law.
R.
G.
LAWSON.
CORRESPONDENCE
TIIE
EDITOR,
Dear Sir,
With reference to Mr. Rodney Brazier’s case note on the recent decision of
the House of
Lords
in
Elaughton
v.
Sdth,
which appears in
the
May
issue.
of the Review,
I
write
to
express my concern about the inaccuracies and lack of
depth of analysis displayed
in
that particular note.
With regard
to
the former, there
is
a
glaring error (at
p.
332)
where
Mr. Brazier has confused the facts of two cases, R. v. Page and R. v.
Lank-
ford. The latter, not the former,
was
a
case concerning attempted rape.
Moreover, R. v. Page
is
not, as
Mr.
Brazier states, “unreported” (note
17,
p.
832).
It
is, in fact,
a
decision
of
the Supreme Court of Victoria and
is
fully reported:
[1933]
V.L.R.
351; [19;M]
A.L.R.
374.
With regard
to
the latter, any comment on the decision in Elaughton. v.
8rnith
must surely draw attention to the artificiality in the distinction between
the fourth and fifth categoriles adopted
by
Turner
J.
in the New Zealand case
of
R.
v. Donnelly and repeated by Lord Hailsham in
Hnughtmc
v.
Smith.
The
fourth category of attempt concerns
a
situation where the accused fails to
achieve his objective because of ineptitude of means e.9. where the accused
uses
too
small
a
quantity of poison to kill
(II.
v. White). The fifth category
concerns cases
of
“
physical impossibility
’)
the classic example being nn
attempt to steal from an empty pocket. According to the House
of
Lords
the former may well amount to an attempt to commit the crime in question,
whilst the latter will not (disapproving but
NOT OVERllUIJNG
R.
v. Ring,
as
Mr.
Brazier suggests). Not only does
Mr.
Brazier fail
to
cliscuss the
problems arising from this form of categorisation, he in fact falls headlong
into the trap and treats
a
clear category four case
as
one under category five.
Thus having stated that R.
v.
Ring
has now been overruled he continues:
“It
follows that Donaldson
J.’s
direction
to
the jury in
Rmsdl
is
also
wrong.”
(p.
333).
Rowsell
is
an unreported case cited hy
Mr.
Peter English
in his article “Did He Think
It
Would
Do
the Trick?
”
(1970
C.L.R.
16)
The Modern Law Review
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