Are we all legal positivists now?

The next meeting of the London Legal Salon will be on Thursday the 17th of July at 1930.  The venue will be the Perseverance pub in Holborn http://www.the-perseverance.moonfruit.com/

To book a place and to receive the readings please email londonlegalsalon@gmail.com.

The question of the connection between the law and morality is central to the history of legal philosophy. The debate, which has lasted from Ancient Greece to the present day, has been dominated by two broad categories of theory: natural law theory and legal positivism. Classical natural law theorists like Aristotle argued that laws were necessarily connected to man’s moral life, and had as their aim some higher moral – or divine – framework. Legal positivists, whose arguments dominated the 20th Century, argued that natural law theory confused the issue of what the law is and what it ought to be, and that laws could have authority irrespective of whether or not they were ‘good’.

Today, lawyers and Judges tend to think of their role as entirely morally neutral. The idea that the law should reflect, in some way, public morality seems a bit outdated. Why is this? Is it simply because natural law theory has been convincingly defeated? Perhaps the triumph of legal positivism reflects a collapse of moral consensus in wider society? Is there anything from natural law theory worth saving?

The Consumer Rights Bill: The Death of Contract? 18th February 2014 at the Old Bank of England

The London Legal Salon will return to the Old Bank of England (http://oldbankofengland.co.uk/) on Tuesday the 18th of February at 1930. 

Daniel Lloyd, Head of Consumer Law at BT, will introduce a discussion on the Consumer Rights Bill.  A short introduction is below.

Please RSVP to Londonlegalsalon@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

We look forward to seeing you all,

The London Legal Salon 

The Consumer Rights Bill:  The Death of Contract?

The Consumer Rights Bill,  introduced in the Queen’s Speech last year,  was described by the government as the ‘most radical overhaul of consumer law in three decades’.  It purports to clarify and streamline previous legislation governing the law of contract whilst granting new rights to consumers in their relationship with businesses. In June 2014 the new Distance Selling Regulations come into force. Later in the year the Government aim to introduce, for the first time, private rights of enforcement under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs).    

What does this overhaul of consumer law say about the role of law in regulating the changing relationship between businesses and consumers?  Are new consumer rights always a good thing,  and  what do they say about they way we view the public?  

The London Legal Salon welcomes Daniel Lloyd,  Head of Consumer law at BT, to discuss the legal and political context of the Consumer Rights Bill, the CPRs and the DSRs and what it means for the relationship between consumers and business.