The Hon. Lowell Goddard to deliver Macfadyen Lecture 2016

The Scottish Council of Law Reporting (SCLR) sponsors a series of lectures by senior judges and lawyers on topics relating to the broad themes of advocacy, the role of the judiciary, and the development of law and legal techniques.

The 2016 lecture will be delivered on 10 March 2016 by the Hon. Lowell Goddard, chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Her subject will be “Making Rights Real: the developing role of human rights in the exercise of public law discretion”.

The law is replete with discretion. A great many statutes, regulations and policies confer on public bodies decisions which impact guaranteed human rights. The number grows each year.

How are the powers so conferred to be exercised consistently with the human rights that are guaranteed in the ECHR and equivalent constitutional documents in comparative jurisdictions? Case law identifies a range of answers.

The Hon. Lowell Goddard will explore the responses of the courts to the important question of how human rights are to be applied in practice, and the implications of different approaches for frontline decision-makers, for judicial review and for related mechanisms that exist to supervise compliance with human rights in the modern administrative state.

Immediately following the lecture, which will be delivered at 6:00pm in the auditorium of the King Khalid building of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (9 Hill Square, EH8 9DR), there will be a reception at the venue.

Tickets are free to all interested in attending, although spaces are limited. To obtain a ticket please register at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-macfadyen-lecture-tickets-20845441276.