AlanPaterson, Final Judgment: The Last Law Lords and the Supreme Court, Oxford: Hart, 2013, xxx + 335 pp, £25.00.
AlanPaterson, Final Judgment: The Last Law Lords and the Supreme Court, Oxford: Hart, 2013, xxx + 335 pp, £25.00.
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艾伦帕特森，《最终判决：最后的上议院法官和最高法院》，牛津：哈特，2013 年，xxx 335 页，25.00 英镑。
DOI：
10.1111/1468-2230.12112_2
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经过近二十年看似无情、甚至不安的宪法改革，很难区分真正重要的实质性变化和无关紧要的表面变化。辨别这项或那项改革是否与现行安排有重大背离，或者只是将已经发生在人们视线之外的变化形式化，可能会很棘手。专注于最突出的结构性改革可能会导致不太明显但可能更重要的行为变化，但很少或根本没有评论。而且，也许最重要的是，我们很容易夸大真正的新的和不同的东西，而低估许多保持不变的东西。在《最终审判》中，艾伦·帕特森避免了所有这些陷阱，对英国最高法院运作的变化和连续性进行了精彩的描述，考虑到需要捕捉和比较上议院司法部门和最高法院（当时后者仍处于起步阶段）的工作场所文化，这一壮举更加令人印象深刻。帕特森借鉴了近四十年的研究，包括对在职和刚刚退休的上议院法官和大法官的采访，并发展了他 1982 年出版的《上议院法官》一书读者所熟悉的主题，他认为上诉决策是一个社会过程，最好通过一系列字面意义上的“对话”来研究。他调查了最高法院法官与他们互动最频繁的人之间的广泛对话：彼此；司法助理；法律顾问;上诉法院法官；苏格兰高级司法机构；国际评委；以及部长和政治家。本书的大部分内容集中于对理解英国终审法院的决策至关重要的两组对话：法官与律师之间的对话以及法官本身之间的对话。帕特森特别感兴趣的是这些对话何时以及如何发生，它们如何影响法庭上的投票模式，当然，还有四十年来这些对话如何变化。正如帕特森解释的那样，这些变化往往是微妙和零星的，其血统可以追溯到高级法官从上议院搬到议会广场另一侧之前很久。在第二章中，帕特森将最高法院与律师的对话描述为比四十年前更加尖锐和集中，更加强调书面辩护。他解释说，口头听证会的时间是四十年前的一半，平均只有两天多一点，而不是三到四天。时间限制降低了口头辩论的重要性，而且大多数法官在口头听证会之前阅读了提交的框架和案例，这增强了书面辩护的重要性。使用司法助理作为参谋，对要在判决中部署的私人论证进行测试，可能会减少高级法官对律师论证的依赖，而且财务压力正在压缩口头听证会的时间，但帕特森指出，辩护仍然很重要（例如，在形成法官的推理（如果不是他们的实际决定）方面，以及在书面陈述中提供一种结构，以便法官以后可以将其用作法官的论证）。 他们的判断框架）。帕特森的典型方法是使用引人注目的数据来支持他的分析。帕特森轻描淡写地指出，最高法院的案件量
After nearly twenty years of seemingly relentless, even restless, constitutional reform, it can be difficult to differentiate between the substantive changes that really matter and the more superficial changes that do not. It can be tricky to discern whether this or that reform is a significant departure from prevailing arrangements or merely formalises changes that have already occurred out of sight. Concentrating on the most prominent structural reforms can lead to less visible but possibly more important behavioural changes passing with litde or no comment. And, perhaps above all, it can be all too easy to exaggerate what is genuinely new and different and to understate the many things that remain the same. In Final Judgment, Alan Paterson avoids all of these pitfalls to offer a masterful account of change and continuity in the workings of the UK's top court, a feat all the more impressive given the need to capture and compare the workplace cultures of both the judicial House of Lords and the Supreme Court at a time when the latter was still in its infancy. Drawing on almost forty years of research, including interviews with serving and recendy retired Law Lords and Justices, and developing themes familiar to readers of his 1982 book The Law Lords, Paterson views appellate decision-making as a social process best studied via a series of'dialogues', used in a literal sense. He investigates a wide range of dialogues between the judges on the top court and those with whom they interact most frequendy: each other; judicial assistants; counsel; judges in the Court of Appeal; the senior Scottish judiciary; international judges; and ministers and politicians. Most of the book focuses on two sets of dialogues crucial to understanding decision-making on the UK's final court: the dialogue between the judges and counsel and that between the judges themselves. Of particular interest to Paterson is when and how these dialogues occur, how they impact voting patterns on the court and, of course, how these have changed over forty years. As Paterson explains, the changes are often subde and sporadic, with lineages that can be traced back long before the top judges relocated from the House of Lords to the other side of Parliament Square. In chapter two, Paterson characterises the top court's dialogue with counsel as sharper and more focused, with a greater emphasis on written advocacy than forty years ago. He explains that oral hearings are half as long as forty years ago, averaging just over two days, rather than three to four. Time limits have lessened the importance of oral argument, together with the fact that most judges have read the skeletons and cases submitted before the oral hearing heightening the importance of written advocacy. The use of judicial assistants as sounding boards to test in private arguments to be deployed in their judgments might have reduced the reliance that the top judges place on counsel's argument, and financial pressures are squeezing the length of oral hearings, but Paterson points to the continued importance of advocacy (for example in shaping the judges' reasoning, if not their actual decision, and in providing a structure in the written submissions that the judges can later use as a framework for their judgments). Typical of Paterson's approach is the use of eye-catching data to undergird his analysis. It is with a light touch that Paterson notes that the top court's caseload