Democracy, Minorities and International Law by Steven Wheatley
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00677_4.x |
| Published date | 01 November 2007 |
| Date | 01 November 2007 |
| Author | Charlotte Steinorth |
taken from Lord Bingham’s speech in AvSecretary of State for the Home Department
(No 2) [2005] 3 WLR 1249. Lord Bingham stated that he was startled and dis-
mayed at the CA’s decision (at [51]). This kind of statement re£ects a trend, not
identi¢ed by the authors, for the HL to be disdainful toward the CA in such
reversals ^ as exempli¢edin passages in Lord Ho¡mann’sspeech in R (SB) vGov-
ernors of Denbigh High School [2006] 2 WLR 719 ([55], [57], [62] and [68]).
The authors make no attempt to discover why the two courts have decided
these public lawcases di¡erently. They have alluded to two factors earlier in the
book but have not employed them in their analysis in this chapter. First, that
courts take di¡erent views of the facts. For example, in AvHeadTeacher and Gover-
nors of Lord Grey S chool [2006] 2 WLR 690, a case about the exclusion of a pupil
from school, Lord Bingham overturned Sedley LJ’s decision largely because he
took a di¡erent view of the facts ^ taking a more favourable viewof the school’s
handling of the situation. A second explanation for the di¡erences in decisions
might lie in the distinction between‘review’ and ‘supervision’(the topic of chapter
10):‘the former is to do with rectifying error in the instant case’ and the latter ‘is
about maintaining systematic quality control in the administration of justice as a
whole’(21).GiventhefactthattheCAdealswithmorethantentimesthenumber
of appeals than the Lords, its focus would no doubt be on reviewand that of the
Lords on supervision. The authors could well have tried to analyse the result of
this di¡erence in focus in way cases were decided.
In the ¢nal chapter, which the authors concede adds little because no conclu-
sion is provided, the authors state that ‘we have not made ^ nordid we expect to
make startling discoveries’ (181).The reader would by now haveworked as much
out for him-or herself. Indeed, much of the material presentedin the book can be
discovered in publicly availabledocuments. Itis a real pity that the authors did not
seize this opportunity to provide real insightinto the workingsof the CA. Hope-
fully, further studies will be undertaken which will give it the attention that it
deserves.
Jonathan Lewis
n
StevenWheatley, Democracy, Minorities and I nternationalLaw,201 pp, hb d50,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
E.M. Forster praiseddemocracy because ‘it admits variety’; yet the potentialdivi-
siveness of democracy’s majoritarian principle cannot be denied.Where political
parties are formed along ethnic, cultural or religious lines, democratic procedures
mayexacerbatetensions between culturallydiverse groups. Post-ColdWar demo-
cratisation has often been accompanied by surges in ethnic violence, leading to a
renewed focus on the relationship between democratic governance and ethnic
con£ict.The present volume by Steven Wheatley provides a welcome addition
to this ¢eld, o¡ering an international legal perspective on the regulation of cul-
tural con£ict in democratic States. Wheatley’s inquiry into ‘the extent to which
n
Lawyer, Court of Appeal.
Reviews
103 8 r2007The Authors. Journal Compilation r2007 The Modern Law ReviewLimited.
(2007) 70(6) 1023^1043
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