Law's Expanding Empire

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science, Government, Technology

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jonathan Sumption argues that the law is taking over the space once occupied by politics. Lord Sumption was until recently a justice of the UK’s Supreme Court, as well as being a distinguished historian. In this lecture, recorded before an audience at Middle Temple in London, Lord Sumption says that until the 19th century, law only dealt with a narrow range of human problems. That has now changed radically. And he argues that the growth of the law, driven by demand for greater personal security and less risk, means we have less liberty. The Reith Lectures are presented and chaired by Anita Anand and produced by Jim Frank Editor: Hugh Levinson

Transcript

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0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds.
0:41.2	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:48.4	Welcome to the 2019 BBC Reith Lectures with the former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumpion.
0:53.0	In his series, he's exploring the complex relationship between politics and the law.
0:58.2	In this first podcast, Lord Sumpion looks at what he calls Law's expanding empire,
1:01.4	the growing influence of the law in our daily lives.
1:10.4	Welcome to the 2019 BBC Reith Lectures and to the magnificent Middle Temple Hall in central London.
1:14.4	This splendid Elizabethan edifice is the centrepiece of one of four inns of court,
1:20.2	which date back to the 14th century, and it has been a home to lawyers for hundreds of years.
1:25.9	We could think of no more fitting place for this year's
1:28.2	lecturer to begin his series about the relationship between the law and politics. Right now,
1:34.2	with the world looking as it does, could there be a more timely intervention? Having spent a
1:40.3	career at the bar, this year's lecturer has been called a man with a brain the size of a planet.
1:47.2	Recently retired as one of Britain's top judges after sitting in the Supreme Court, he has
1:51.8	returned to his primary passion, history. His appropriately forensic accounts of the 100
1:57.8	years' war have been widely praised. Over a series of five lectures, he will
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