Introduction -- The civilian dimension -- Case law as common law -- "Obiter" as legal entity -- Dicta depicted -- Oblique strategies -- Engines of confusion -- The necessity test -- Cheap talk -- Dicta and dicta -- Nearly law? -- Observation and authority -- The sources problem -- Some preliminary observations on dissent -- The nature of judicial dissent -- Without contraries is no progression? -- Stalemates and motivations -- Dissents, decisions, and courts -- The tug of unanimity in England's courts -- Dissent in an apex court -- When is a dissent not a dissent? -- Minorities as authorities -- Are we agreed?
Summary:
"Introduction: We digress when, in intending to make a point, we either temporarily or permanently deviate from it. Digressions can be deliberate or unconscious. They can be to good or bad - or a mixture of good and bad - or to no effect. Distinguishing the digressive from the non-digressive is not always straightforward: comments offered as asides can strike at the very heart of a matter, just as narrative which a reader thinks peripheral might be the author's fil conducteur. Common-law judges often digress in the course of making legal decisions. The standard characterization of these digressions is that they are observations which are not integral to a decision that has been reached - that they could be taken out of a judgment without that judgment being undermined. The full legal Latin term for these observations is obiter dicta"-- Provided by publisher.
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