The Exercise of Discretion in the Enforcement of Law
| Author | A. F. C. Clissitt |
| Published date | 01 December 1969 |
| Date | 01 December 1969 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X6904201209 |
| Subject Matter | The Queen's Police Gold Medal Essay Competition |
The
Queen's
Police
Gold
Medal
Essay
Competition
A.
F.
C.
CLISSITT
Assistant ChiefConstable
of
Leeds
We congratulate Mr. Clissitt on winning The Queen's Gold Medal
for the following essay.
THE
EXERfjISE OF DISfjRETION
IN
THE
ENFORfjEMENT OF
LAW
In the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, "discretion" is given the third
meaning: "Liberty or power of deciding, or of acting according to
one's own judgment; uncontrolled power of disposal: in law the
power to decide, within the limits allowed by positive rules of law,
as to punishments, remedies or costs and generally to regulate
matters of procedure and administration".
Is there a difference between discretion and judgment here? The
answer is "yes" because discretion involves an element of personal
judgment, scope for particularity, even within the operation of the
rules of law.
In the first place it is quite clear from the very nature of man that,
in so far as he is capable of forming personal judgments, he is
equally capable of exercising discretion. Whether he uses discretion
or not is another matter. He may choose to exercise his judgment
on what appears to be the merits of each individual matter he
considers, or he may, at the other extreme, harness his exercise of
judgment to certain fixed principles regardless of any procrustean
result.
It
is also clear from the nature of man that he lives in society and
that each society, however primitive, lays down laws for its members
to observe. The observance of these laws is the guarantee of the
continuance of society. Their breach or disregard leads to breakdown
and ultimate anarchy.
Here we come face to face with a fundamental conflict of mankind.
On the one hand the ability to use discretion, on the other the
exigence of society in the observance of its laws.
It
is this conflict
which underlies the problems of the primitive in faceof the civilized,
the rigorist in face of the broadminded, the radical in face of the
progressive.
December 1969 S64
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