Bentham as a Common Law Revisionist

Abstract This chapter presents Bentham's ‘revisionist’ account of Common Law adjudication. It considers materials where Bentham clearly assumes a context of non-statutory decisional law. Although he discusses issues of statutory interpretation and adjudication in the shadow of statutory law, he is primarily concerned with the special problems of adjudication within (as he called it) ‘judge-made’ law. No defence of familiar Common Law theory or practice is attempted. Rather, Bentham tries to articulate for himself the principles and minimal conditions which such a practice of adjudication must meet. Once these principles and conditions were made clear, Bentham was convinced that no system of law remotely resembling his native Common Law could possibly meet the conditions.