The second survey of legal education was published in July 1975 and was based largely on information gathered during the academic session 1973/74. At that time, the decision was taken to present the material in tabular form in order that the report could provide a framework for the future publication, at suitable intervals, of supplements containing appropriate up-dated tables. In pursuance of this objective, supplements were published in 1978 and 1981 with statistics drawn largely from sessions 1976/77 and 1980/81 respectively.

Developments since 1981 now justify the undertaking of a more thorough review with the object of producing a third survey report.

The rule in O’Reilly u Mackman is well known. As a result of Lord Diplock’s speech in that case, the scope of the application for judicial review procedure under s 31 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 and RSC Ord 53, has been dominated by attempts to distinguish between public and private law. According to Lord Diplock, public law cases must normally be pursued under the special Ord 53 procedure whereas private law cases even though involving substantive principles of judicial review must be pursued in ordinary courts. There are also hybrid cases - chimeras which combine features both of public and private law. In such cases the challenger is apparently free to proceed either under Ord 53 or by way or ordinary action or defence. These hybrids are not easy to reconcile with the purposes and policies behind the O’Reilly rule.

Strange events are occurring in the world of the jury. At a time when English confidence in the institution is on the ebb, a phenomenon evidenced both in the titles of recent jury studies - The Jury Under Attack and Taking Liberties- and in a steady stream of skeptical commentaries, it is reported that in Japan the Bar Federation is set to call for the restoration of jury trial, first introduced by a law of 1926 but suspended after an experimental period in 1942. Spain has a new Constitution that imposes a duty on the legislature to institute jury trial, an undertaking currently under examination by the Spanish Ministry of Justice. And in South Africa, recent calls for a more representative justice system have prompted the editor of the South African Law Journal, Professor Ellison Kahn, to devote a tetralogy of articles to consideration of the reintroduction of jury trial within that jurisdiction.

Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 is a measure of protective legislation that concerns purely commercial relationships and it is apparent that the degree of protection, and the need to redress inequality, is less than, say, with the housing market. The Act represents an unusual and complex measure of political and economic engineering. By an interference with the parties' freedom of contract, the policy of the Act is to provide security of tenure and to promote equality ofbargaining strength between commercial landlord and tenant. The aim was to prevent a tenant at the end of the contractual term facing business closure or being compelled to accept a new lease at an exorbitant rent. Although a derogation from the common law rights of the landlord, the Act was intended to make only limited inroads on the free market. In contrast to such areas as employment law and residential lettings, the transition from contract to status was to occur with a minimal disruption of market forces.

The problems associated with pre-incorporation contracts are due to the essentially artificial nature of a company’s existence and personality. The existence of a company, unlike that of a natural person, is not something which can be readily ascertained but is a matter of legal formality. There is a good case for treating pre-incorporation contracts as sui generis, but until 1973 their legal effect was governed by common law principles of contract and agency which drew little distinction between companies and natural persons. The result was unsatisfactory and widely criticised, one commentator remarking that ‘it is rare to hear such a widespread and common opposition against any aspect of English company law’. Section 9(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 (now to be found in s 36C of the Companies Act 1985) made a partial reform of this law, but did not deal with the inability of a newly formed company to ratify or adopt a pre-incorporation contract made on its behalfeven though this was a major deficiency of the common law.

In recent years the meaning of the word ‘interview’ has become central to the regulatory framework of PACE. In part, this flows directly and inevitably from the terms of the act itself. If a verbal exchange between suspect and police is an interview, certain procedural consequences follow: it must normally be contemporaneously noted verbatim or taped; if the suspect is a juvenile or mentally disordered, it must usually take place in the presence of an ‘appropriate adult’. Furthermore, as a result of the recent revision of Code C on ‘Questioning’, persons arrested for an offence may not normally be interviewed about it except in a police station.