Study Skills Sessions with Academic Advisers

Session 1

For the first study skills session you need to find a copy of the case R (SB) v Governors of Denbigh
High School [2006] UKHL 15. The purpose of this exercise is to start getting you used to finding
legal materials via the library, to introduce you to reading cases, and to get you thinking about
some of the issues raised by the case.

There are various ways to find the case. Because you need to become adept at using electronic
databases to find reading for your courses, two ways of finding the case using different databases
are described below. For both methods, you need to start by logging on to a computer and finding
the LSE homepage. Try both methods so that you get used to using different databases.

Lexis
1. Find the LSE Library homepage by clicking the Library tab at the top of the screen on
www.lse.ac.uk.
2. Scroll down and click on Law from the list of Subject Guides in the third column on the right
hand side.
3. At Law click on Primary Sources - Case Law from the list on the left.
4. At Primary Sources - Case Law click on Lexis Library link in middle of the page
5. Click ‘Electronic resource for LSE staff and students only. Click here to access. May require
LSE username and password.
6. Enter your LSE username and password as required (available from LSE for You)
7. At Lexis Library page click on the Cases tab at the top left hand side
8. You will be taken to a search function. Where you see Case Name type

Begum
for the first party

and
Denbigh High School
for the second party

Scroll down and where you see Court select

House of Lords

Now click on search tab or press return

9. When the search results appear click on the first link to the case described as

R (on the application of Begum) v Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School

10. This takes you to a report of the case. It is now up to you how you want to read it. You can read
it on the screen as it appears, print it out, or save it, either on your own computer or on your
LSE hspace. To print or save, you can use the icons towards the top right of the LEXIS screen.

Westlaw
1. Follow steps 1-4 above, but at step 5 click on Westlaw UK.
2. Log-in as in steps 6-7 above.
3. On the ‘Log-in to Westlaw’ window, click ‘skip’.
2. Click on the ‘Cases’ tab at the top left hand side.
3. In the citation box, type in 2006 UKHL 15, and click on the search tab or press return.
4. Click on one of the links to a report of the case, eg 2006 2 WLR 719
5. As before, you can use the print or save options towards the top right of the screen.
Once you have found the case, you need to read it and be prepared to answer questions on it. You
can read the whole case if you like, but for the study skills session you only need to read the
judgments of Lord Bingham and Baroness Hale.

Questions
1. What court decided this case? Did it agree with the court below? What courts will in future be
bound by this decision? Can any courts overturn this decision?

2. What did the court decide in this case? Note that at para [2] Lord Bingham makes a statement
about what the court did not decide. Why do you think he says this, and why might he think that the
question is an inappropriate one for the court?

3. What do Bingham and Hale disagree about? Why do they disagree?

4. What legal sources do Bingham and Hale draw upon in their arguments? Do they use any non-
legal sources and, if so, what authority do they have?

5. Do you think this is a good decision? Why?

Session 2
The purpose of the second session is to introduce you to legal commentary, to encourage you to
reflect more critically on the judgment in Denbigh, and, again, to get you used to finding materials
through the electronic library. To prepare for this session, read Vakulenko, ‘Islamic Dress in
Human Rights Jurisprudence’ (2007) Human Rights Law Review 717. The article is quite long, and
deals with cases other than Denbigh, so just read the introduction (section 1) quickly, then
concentrate on sections 2 and 3 (pp 721-9). To find an electronic copy, follow the steps below:

1. Log on to a computer, navigate to the LSE homepage and click on the library tab, as before.
2. In the Search the Library Catalogue box, type in ‘Human Rights Law Review’ and click on Go, or
press return.
3. The search will locate a number of items in the library with ‘Human Rights Law Review’ in the
title. The one you are looking for is Human Rights Law Review [electronic resource] and should be
about the second result on the search results page, so click on it.
4. Click on Click here for full text.
5. The library subscribes to several different sources for the journal. It doesn’t much matter which
you use, but the instructions below take you through finding it in Oxford Journals, so click on
Oxford Journals.
6. Enter your username and password if required.
7. Click on 2007.
8. The next page presents links to the different issues of the 2007 volume. You’re looking for the
one with page 717 in it, so click on the last one: 2007 (7) 4.
9. Click on Full text (pdf) for the Vakulenko article. Read, print, or save.

(Note that if you want to save and read an article (or case) on your computer, it’s often useful to
have a copy in Word, then you can add notes to the document or highlight sections and save these
annotations on your computer, which you can’t do on most pdfs. If you wanted to do that with the
Vakulenko article, you could get one through Westlaw at step 5 above. An alternative is to click on
Full text (html) at step 9, then copy and paste the text into a blank word document.)

Questions
1. At p 720, Vakulenko states that she ‘does not take sides in the debate regarding the substantive
outcome of these cases’, ie she is not saying whether she thinks the court in Denbigh (and other
cases) came to the right decision. So what’s the point? What do you think the article is trying to
do?
2. What arguments does Vakulenko use as a means of questioning the Denbigh decision? In what
ways do her arguments differ from the sorts of argument used by Bingham and Hale in Denbigh?

3. Having read Vakulenko’s article, do you think that the House of Lords gives an impartial view of
the facts in Denbigh?

4. Do the arguments in the article change your view of Denbigh?

5. If you were a judge in the House of Lords and had to make a decision on Denbigh, how would
you decide it? What arguments would you use to support your decision?

Further Reading
If you are interested in the issues raised by Denbigh, you will find quite a lot of commentary on it
beyond the Vakulenko article. One way to find commentary on a case is by using Westlaw. In the
Westlaw instructions for finding the case, at step 4 click on Case Analysis. Then, on the menu on
the left, click on Journal Articles. This takes you to a list of journal articles that discuss Denbigh (in
this case the list is very long, and many of the articles only mention the case in passing). Some of
these are available on Westlaw, and you can click through to download them. Two recommended
pieces of commentary on the case are Malik, ‘Religious Freedom and Multiculturalism’ (2008) 19
King’s Law Journal 377, and Davies ‘The House of Lords and Religious Freedom in Begum’ (2007)
13 European Public Law 423. These are not available through Westlaw, but you can still access
electronic copies of them through the library. It is a useful exercise to see if you can find these
articles, even if you do not read them. In orientation week you will be given more guidance on
using electronic resources, as well as exercises to do to improve your skills. Another good source
on Denbigh is to Le Sueur, Sunkin and Murkens, Public Law: Text, Cases, and Materials (OUP, 2nd
ed., 2013), 773-786.