"I do not think that a Judge would wish any statement which he may have made in the course of a case, merely obiter and casually, to be treated as necessarily being an authority on the subject in question; but when a Judge has thought it necessary for the purpose of a case to make a deliberate examination of the practice of his Court, and to state such practice, I do not think the authority of such statement can be got rid of merely by arguing that it was not really necessary for the actual decision of the case. I think that such a statement if cited as an authority is entitled to great weight, though of course not binding on us as a decision."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomBritish peersLawyers from EnglandConservative Party (UK) politiciansJudges from England
Original Language: English
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Ex parte Rev. James Bell Cox (1887), L. R. 20 Q. B. D. 19.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Brett%2C_1st_Viscount_Esher
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William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher
William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, PC (13 August 1815 - 24 May 1899), known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage
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