69 / 250
g a z e t t e
a p r i l 1982
48. (1816) 5 M. & S. 206.
49.
R
v.
Edwards,
supra, at p.35.
50. Ibid., p. 35. Mr. Justice Davitt in
McGowan
v.
Carville
11960| I.R.
330 expressed similar sentiments when he observed: "The 'peculiar
knowledge' principle if applied to criminal cases generally and
indiscriminately could have strange results. In many cases it is an
essential element of the offence charged that an act was not merely
done but that it was done with a particular intent. An intent is a state
of mind, and if ever there was a matter which could be said to be
peculiarly within a person's knowledge it is the state of his own mind.
I have, however, yet to hear of a prosecuting counsel submitting that
the onus of disproving a particular intent alleged rested on the
defendant" (at p.337).
51.
R v. Edwards,
supra, p.40.
52. Zuckerman, The Third Exception to the Woolmington Rule (1976)
92 L.Q.R. 402,
pp. 403-10.
53. Ibid., p.412.
54. Phipson on
Evidence,
12th edition, p. 112. The Criminal Law
Revision
Eleventh Report Evidence (General)
Cmnd. 4991 (1972)
strongly recommended in paragraph 140 that burdens on the
defence should be evidential only.
55. See Zuckerman, The Third Exception to the Woolmington Rule,
supra, p.424.
56. Ibid., p.424.
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60
Law in School Curricula
Condensed from an address by Mrs Eileen Scott,
Senior Lecturer, Bolton College of Further Education, to
the Law Society's symposium "The Student and the
World" at Blackhall Place, Dublin, in March.
The function of the Bolton College of Further
Education is to train teachers for the further education
service, for the whole range of subjects that may be found
in the colleges from craft engineers and builders, or to final
professional students and undergraduates in virtually any
discipline. My role is principally the training of lawyers
and political scientists, most of them graduates but some
with a variety of business studies qualifications which are
deemed to equip them with the necessary subject matter.
My first concern is not so much the 'what' and 'why' of
curriculum innovation, but the 'how' of its
implementation. It is in this field that the Law Society in
England has concerned itself — in two directions. It has
been involved in the publication of some teaching
materials^ intended to be used in the teaching of law in
schools by teachers not necessarily themselves trained as
teachers of law. Young solicitors through their own
organisation and their own committed members have
embarked on the dangerous venture of actually going into
the schools to talk about the law, or theirjobs, or whatever
the school particularly asked for. It was here some of them
recognised there was more to teaching law to teenagers
than they had anticipated.
At this point I met the young solicitors' committee
officers and we have run two one-day courses specially
designed to help practitioners tackle this rather different
situation from their usual working experience. I worked
with my own colleagues at Bolton, particularly a
psychologist and a sociologist, to describe briefly the
intellectual development of the teenager and then
secondly how he interacts with his peers, while my task
was to examine the range of teaching material available
and how to select and use it. One first venture was
considered successful enough to be reproduced in London
at a sister college there with more specialised staff
involved.
Law is only one aspect of a broader spectrum of related
subjects and while the teaching force lacks sufficient
numbers of suitably experienced teachers to attempt to
develop the subject, we shall have to use experienced
lawyers on the one hand, hopefully properly prepared for
the task and able to do something other than lecture, while
we undertake the training of teachers probably
experienced in some other social science area of the
curriculum who are prepared themselves to become
students of law or indeed politics — to equip themselves
with sufficient subject matter content to be able to launch
themselves with some confidence in this new area.
Any attempt to broaden the curriculum in this way will
be doomed to failure in my view unless considerable care
is taken to develop appropriate course material, so that
teachers and taught can explore the complexities together,
and learn through experience. •