ABSTRACT
The procedural transformation which took place in the mid-18th century, in a few court and sessions houses in England, was to produce far-reaching consequences which would extend beyond criminal trial and change the whole relationship between the state and the individual. In the partial and incomplete records of the trials which took place here, we have the very first sighting of a recognisable human rights culture in western, if not global, civilisation. From this period, the trial chamber in England would become progressively less like a subsidiary royal court, in which the feudal power of the monarch was articulated by loyal judges, and would slowly assume the character of an open and independent forum for the negotiation of rights by autonomous actors.
