On 10 March 2023, Lord Philip Sales, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, delivered the 2023 Cambridge Freshfields Lecture entitled 'Constitutional values in the common law of obligations'.
In his lecture, Lord Sales explored how the common law of obligations has always encoded constitutional values for the protection of the rights and freedoms of subjects. An illustration is that many important constitutional principles were established by private law proceedings, such as the 1765 decision in Entick v Carrington, which was an action in trespass. Lord Sales contrasted this approach with those taken in some other European systems, where courts may have an obligation to ensure that constitutional values radiate into all areas of the law, including private law. The limited acceptance of this model in the law of England and Wales, since the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998, suggests that there are now multiple mechanisms by which constitutional values appear in the common law of obligations.
The Cambridge Freshfields Lecture is an annual address delivered by a guest of the Cambridge Private Law Centre, and the event is sponsored by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
More information about this lecture, including other recorded formats, the slides, and photographs from the event, is available from the Private Law Centre website.
