The English tradition of substantive formalism, for most of the twentieth century, had a pervasive influence, not only on English legal culture but the legal cultures of Commonwealth and Empire. Staffing of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council embodied, on the one hand, a rigidly formalistic view of the declaratory theory of law yet, on the other, the vague approach to separation of powers and judicial independence encountered elsewhere. If the legal systems of some Commonwealth countries still sometimes seem the prisoners of the earlier decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy...

The English tradition of substantive formalism, for most of the twentieth century, had a pervasive influence, not only on English legal culture but the legal cultures of Commonwealth and Empire. Staffing of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council embodied, on the one hand, a rigidly formalistic view of the declaratory theory of law yet, on the other, the vague approach to separation of powers and judicial independence encountered elsewhere. If the legal systems of some Commonwealth countries still sometimes seem the prisoners of the earlier decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, it is perhaps appropriate to ask how that latter court was staffed as life ebbed out of it in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.