The phrase "a wider principle" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a broader or more general concept that encompasses specific instances or ideas.
Example: "While this case is important, it also highlights a wider principle that applies to many similar situations."
Alternatives: "a broader concept" or "a more general principle".
But there was also a wider principle involved, one that greatly annoyed the male scientific establishment when she proposed it in "The Evolution of Primate Behaviour" in 1972.
Algar said there was a wider principle at stake, concerning whether Britain should "be supporting without question the supply of policing equipment to a country known to torture bogus confessions out of people, including in cases where such 'confessions' can lead to a death sentence".
It can be treated as illustrating a wider principle that responsibility for harm is confined to the type of harm envisaged by the purpose of the rule of law violated (Normzweck), a theory espoused in Germany (Von Cämmerer, J.G.Wolf).
It may not be quite on a par with the resignation speech of Margaret Thatcher's nemesis, Sir Geoffrey Howe, but its central charge of a chancellor abandoning wider principle in pursuit of deficit reduction strikes at the heart of a government of which until Friday night he was a senior member.
But there is wider principle here.
Second, the wider principle: ending the market in the NHS.
The dreadful accident off the coast of Louisiana was one thing, but the wider principle of sponsorship by oil companies in particular, and large corporations in general, is another.
Far from requiring the courts to give "particular regard to the importance of … freedom of expression" – which is what it says and what the appeal court thought it meant – section 12 makes no difference to the wider principle that in balancing privacy against freedom of expression neither right has preference over the other.
It will make it harder to scrutinise the conduct of the police and we fear it will undermine the wider principle of the public's right to know.
I enquired about statistics as a subject in its own right and the wider principles of research, critical reading of research, and evidence-based medicine.
The third step is a more far-reaching consultation exercise, which will cover both wider principles of potential FOI coverage and administrative processes for its current operation.
