Matthew Hale (jurist) - Legacy

Legacy

Hale is universally considered an excellent judge and jurist, particularly due to his writings. Edward Foss wrote that he was an "eminent judge, whom all look up to as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, as well for the soundness of his learning as for the excellence of his life". Similarly, John Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices of England, wrote that Hale was "one of the most pure, the most pious, the most independent, and the most learned" of judges. Henry Flanders, writing in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, describes Hale during his lifetime as "the most learned, the most able, the most honorable man to be found in the profession of the law". Hale's writings have been cited as recently as 1993, in the case of R v Kingston, where the Court of Appeal relied on his statement that "drunkenness is not a defence" to uphold a conviction. William Holdsworth argues that it was his learning in Roman law and jurisprudence which allowed him to work so effectively; because he had seen other legal systems at work, he "could both criticise the defects of English law and state its rules in a more orderly form than they had ever been stated before". Hale's political neutrality and personal integrity has been attributed to his Puritainism, and his support of the common law; "Regimes come and go, the common law abides...For Hale...legal continuity was vital for civic identity".

Much comparison has been made of Hale with Edward Coke. Campbell considered Hale to be the superior lawyer, because while he failed to engage in public life he treated law as a science, and maintained judicial independence and neutrality. Hostettler, while considering Hale a better lawyer than Coke and more influential, says that Coke was better overall. While Hale was in possession of judicial impartiality, and his written works are considered highly important, his lack of venture into public affairs limited his progressive influence. Coke's active intervention allowed him to "breath new life into medieval law and use it to oppose conciliar justice", encouraging judges to be more independent and "unfettered except by the common law whose supremacy it was their duty to uphold". J.H. Corbett, writing in the Alberta Law Quarterly, notes that with Hale's popularity at the time (Parliamentary constituencies "fought over the privilege of returning him") he could have been just as successful as Coke if he had chosen to take an active role in public affairs.