Author Archives: UKCLG blog editors

About UKCLG blog editors

The UKCLG blog is edited by NW Barber (Oxford).
by | May 14, 2013 · 4:55 am

Events in June: (1) political influences, (2) transnational human rights litigation and (3) dissenting judgments

UK Constitutional Law Group members and blog readers are invited to three events in June.

10 June 2013, starting at 5 pm: a joint event by the UK CLG, Devolution Club and London Metropolitan University: How politics influences the constitution: time for new constitutional conventions? Foreword – Aleesandro Torre (chairman of the Devolution Club); chair – Sebastian Payne (co-convenor, UK CLG); speakers – Lord Norton of Louth (University of Hull and House of Lords) and Giovanni Rizzoni (House of Deputies, Italy); discussant – Peter Leyland (London Metropolitan University). Venue: Italian Cultural Institute, 39 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8NX.

The following two events are organised by BPP University College in the “Fresh Perspective on Law” series. For more information please contact the seminar convenors, Chris Monaghan (ChrisMonaghan@bpp.com) or Thomas Bennett (ThomasBennett@bpp.com).

11th June 2013, starting at 6pm: ”Barriers in International Law to Transnational Human Rights Litigation” by Paul Mora, Lecturer, BPP Law School. “An international trend towards States providing reparation for violations of human rights has become discernible in recent years. However, this movement has not overcome the barriers imposed by international law on individuals who seek to obtain civil remedies before the national courts of foreign states for their alleged abuses. This lecture will evaluate the international doctrines of jurisdiction and immunity in light of the recent decisions of the US Supreme Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, and the International Court of Justice in Germany v. Italy. It will argue that these decisions are correctly decided in so far as they recognise the horizontal nature of the international legal system whereby sovereign States are equal, and their national courts cannot assert regulatory competence over another.” Paul David Mora is a Lecturer in Law at BPP Law School, University College. He has a research interest in public international law, and his work in this field was cited by an amicus curiae brief before the US Supreme Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum. This event is accredited for 1 CPD Point. Venue: BPP Law School Waterloo, 137 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN. Register here.

26th June 2013, starting at 6pm: “An Evening of Dissent: Exploring the importance of Dissenting Judgments in English Law“. A discussion panel will examine the importance of dissenting judgments in English Law. In what should be a lively and informed event, the panel will look at dissenting judgments from a contemporary and historical perspective. There will be focus on the value of dissenting judgments for practitioners, as well discussing whether there is a need for clearer judgments (such as at the ECtHR). Confirmed panellists include: Professor Ian Loveland, City University; Catharine MacMillan, Reader in Legal History at Queen Mary, University of London; Richard Booth QC, One Crown Office Row; Chris Monaghan, Senior Lecturer in Law, BPP University College;· Neal Geach, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Hertfordshire. This event is accredited for 1.5 CPD Points. Venue: BPP Law School Waterloo, 137 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN. Register here.

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by | April 12, 2013 · 9:52 am

James Lambert: Law Via the Internet Conference 2013

J LambertWhy is an international conference on free access to law being hosted this year in Jersey (population 90,000 and British Crown Dependency)?

It is 11 years since the declaration on Free Access to Law was signed in Montreal  and the Free Access to Law Movement was founded.  Since then the movement has grown to include organisations from more than 50 countries, and recent Law Via the Internet (LVI) conferences have been hosted by members in Africa, Asia and North America.  Now, for the first time, LVI comes to the British Isles.

The Jersey Legal Information Board  has been a member of the Free Access to Law Movement since 2008 and is proud to host LVI2013, where the over-arching theme will be “Free Access to Law in a Changing World”.  But where does Jersey’s pedigree, in the free access to law context, come from? The Jersey Legal Information Board (JLIB) was established in 1999 under the chairmanship of the Island’s chief justice.  As a direct provider of legal information, JLIB is almost unique in being a government sponsored agency.  JLIB’s Vision is for Jersey’s legal system “to be, and be recognised as, the global best for a small jurisdiction”. Historically, JLIB has played a major role in ensuring that the Island’s statutes and case law have been made available online to Jersey’s legal profession, and to prospective investors and regulators worldwide.  More recently, there has been a strategic shift towards making the law more widely and freely accessible to all, and to support this process, JLIB has been a member of the Free Access to Law Movement for the last 5 years.

One of many issues regularly debated by the Free Access to Law Movement, and a particular problem that afflicts Jersey as a small island jurisdiction, is the issue of balancing public interest and open justice with the privacy of the individual, which will be a major theme of this year’s conference.

The principle of open justice is regarded as being of constitutional significance.  In the past, when judgments remained in practical obscurity, there were few privacy issues (the effort required to extract them from the Court archives exceeded the desire to view them).  However, now that they are published on the Internet, Googling a name has become a pastime for the idle or inquisitive.  JLIB has received complaints from people who committed serious offences as young adults, were sent to prison, but now 10 or 12 years later are trying to get their lives back on track.  They feel haunted by the publication of judgments which can be read by prospective employers, people who would like to settle old scores, or people they meet in the street.  This is especially significant to a small island population.

Neither the Data Protection Law nor the Rehabilitation of Offenders Law in Jersey restrict the publication (in full) of judgments on the JLIB website.  However, it would not be unreasonable to apply a process of redaction (or ‘pseudonymisation’) to protect the identity of victims and witnesses involved in criminal cases.

JLIB has addressed this issue by working with the courts, the Children’s Service and the Data Protection Commissioner to agree a protocol for when a judgment should be redacted or indeed retained in a restricted area of the website to which access is limited to the legal profession and the judiciary.  These include:

  • Criminal cases involving under-18s – redacted.
  • Criminal case victims and witnesses – redacted.
  • Trust cases involving minors – redacted.
  • Sexual assault case victims – redacted and restricted access.
  • Public Law Children cases – redacted and restricted access.
  • Adoption cases – redacted and restricted access.

Statute law already prevents the identification of victims of sexual assault, under-18s in criminal or public law children proceedings, and adopted children.  The above protocol therefore reflects and exceeds existing statutory requirements, and is included in a set of guidelines which have been shared with other Free Access to Law Movement members.

Balancing of interests involves an examination on a case by case basis, and balancing the need for judicial accountability with the need for the privacy of the individual.  However, the stated view of Jersey’s judiciary and over-riding principal is that justice must be seen to be done.  Public trust and confidence in the justice system would be jeopardised if judicial hearings were routinely held in private.  There is also a need for open and public hearings to satisfy the public or community catharsis.

Since the Arab Spring, there has been an increasing interest in free access to law in countries where the rule of law is only starting to be established.  Publicly available free access to law is seen as essential in the move towards establishing democracy, respect for human rights, and the creation of a market economy.  Most people in these countries are very familiar with mobile technology, with expectations of receiving information, legal or otherwise, via the Internet.  For the first time, therefore, the conference will include a track entitled ‘Online legal information – starting from scratch’ followed by a practitioners workshop.

The conference is already attracting global interest from places as far afield as Japan, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Namibia, Australia, Zimbabwe, USA, Canada, Mongolia – not to mention many jurisdictions closer to home.  The Conference takes place on 26-27th September 2013, and further details can be found here.

James Lambert is Director of Services in the Jersey Court Service.

Suggested citation: J. Lambert, ‘Law Via the Internet Conference 2013’ ,  UK Const. L. Blog (12 April 2013) (available at http://ukconstitutionallaw.org).

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by | April 11, 2013 · 5:08 am

Kate Malleson: Is the UK the only OECD country that does not have excellent women lawyers fit for our highest courts?

malleson photo 2010Readers will be forgiven for not noticing, but on 8 April 2013 Lord Justice Hughes and Lord Justice Toulson were sworn in as Justices of the UK Supreme Court.

Their appointment, together with that of Lord Hodge (who will succeed Lord Hope when he retires in October 2013), leaves the Court rock bottom of the list Supreme Courts of the 34 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries when it comes to the gender composition of bench. Fifteen new judges been appointed to the court since 2009 when the court opened its doors. All have been male.  Lady Hale remains the only woman ever appointed to the highest court in the land.

It is now well established that there are many barriers to women reaching the higher ranks of the judiciary: from the unreconstructed working arrangements of the legal profession and the bench to the wider social context of the gendered division of labour around caring responsibilities. But all of these barriers are equally present in other countries which have done so much better than us in appointing women to their judiciaries.

Numerous detailed proposals for reform have been put forward in the UK over the last 20 years for encouraging greater diversity on the bench. All of them are necessary but they are not sufficient.  What Adam Wagner has described as an ‘attack of the clones’ continues. In fact, in the last two appointment rounds – though which five Supreme Court Justices were appointed – just one woman sat on the appointing committee.

Ultimately, to change the composition of an institution of power such as the judiciary and to allow in those who are not drawn from the same background as the traditional recruits requires political will. Not just from politicians, but from all the key stakeholders, in this case the judges and the legal profession.

In Northern Ireland after the Good Friday agreement was signed there was political will to change the composition of the bench, in that case to include those from the catholic community. It would no longer have been acceptable for the majority catholic community to be tried by an almost exclusively protestant bench. Quietly and effectively the change was made within a few years. The same political will is evident in countries such as Canada which have transformed their Supreme Court composition in terms of gender. The latest round of appointments to the UK Supreme Court shows that the same political will is lacking here.

The claim – evidenced by these appointments – that after 30 years of women entering the legal profession in large numbers and almost a decade after the first woman was appointed to the House of Lords – we still don’t have enough highly talented women to appoint to the bench is simply incredible. Do we really believe that we are the only country in the OECD that does not have excellent women lawyers fit for our highest courts? They may not look identical to the men who have traditionally been appointed, but they are there. It is time for the discussions, the official reviews and the hand-wringing to stop. It is time for some of these excellent women to be put on the bench where they belong.

Kate Malleson is Professor of Law at Queen Mary, University of London. Equal Justices Initiative is a forum for bringing together academics, practitioners, judges and policy-makers to work towards gender parity on the bench.

Suggested citation: Kate Malleson, ‘ Is the UK the only OECD country that does not have excellent women lawyers fit for our highest courts? ’ ,  UK Const. L. Blog (11 April 2013) (available at http://ukconstitutionallaw.org).

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by | · 7:22 am

Stephen Tierney: After the referendum – the Scottish Government’s proposal for a written Constitution

stierneyThe debate over Scottish independence has turned recently to discussion of the post-referendum landscape. On 5 February the Scottish Government published Scotland’s Future: from the Referendum to Independence and a Written Constitution  which suggests that a two stage process would follow upon a majority Yes vote. From the date of the referendum until March 2016 a period of constitutional negotiations with the UK Government is proposed, culminating in the formal grant of independence by Westminster. Following the Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2016 a constitution-framing process, internal to Scotland only, would then take place. Although the prospect of a Yes vote is, to say the least, far from certain with support failing to rise above 35% in most polls, each of these proposed stages is interesting, not least for the questions left unanswered in the Scotland’s Future paper.

The first issue is timing. Scotland’s Future (1.6) states: ‘The right time for a written constitution to be drafted is… after independence, not before. At that point the people of Scotland, whatever their views in the referendum, will be able to engage fully in the process of planning for our country’s future.’ It is, therefore, not the intention of the Scottish Government to engage in setting out a draft constitution in advance of the referendum. But it still seems inevitable that speculation about the content of a future constitution of an independent Scotland will inevitably be a focal-point, albeit possibly not a major one, of the referendum campaign, particularly after the Scottish Government publishes its promised White Paper towards the end of this year on the content of independence which will inevitably contain commitments which would in due course require constitutional protection.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Scotland’s Future is somewhat light on the possible content of a new constitution, but there are some hints about the Government’s preferences. It is notable in itself that the Government proposes a written constitution (Scotland’s Future 1.5). It also suggests that the Sovereign will continue as head of state (2.14); that there will be a Supreme Court of Scotland, and that this court will have the power to strike down unconstitutional legislation (the constitution will contain ‘citizens rights that cannot be taken away by a decision of Parliament’ – 1.5). This raises a number of questions about court structure under the new regime. How would a new Supreme Court be established and how would it be populated? Would it be a free-standing court with personnel separate from the existing superior courts in Scotland, and if so could this be justified given the limited number of constitutional issues that come from Scotland to the UK Supreme Court at the moment? Or would judges from the Court of Session sit on this on an ad hoc basis? 

There is also a reference to Scotland’s membership of the European Union (and of course there is a separate debate about how that membership will be secured) being subject to constitutional provision (2.3). Little is said about institutional arrangements. One question that will inevitably arise in the referendum campaign is whether there would be any proposals to make the Scottish Parliament bicameral or at least to institute some model of review body to assess and scrutinise draft legislation.

Scotland’s Future spends longer setting out a commitment to collectivist values in the form of social rights which it suggests will also enjoy constitutional protection. There is a proposal to enshrine within the constitution an entitlement to public services and ‘to a standard of living that, as a minimum, secures dignity and self-respect’ (1.10) and possibly also ‘constitutional rights in relation to issues such as welfare, pensions, health care and education’ (1.10). There is also a radical suggestion that principles on climate change, the environment and the sustainable use of Scotland’s natural resources should be constitutionally protected and that there might be a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons being based in Scotland. Each of these proposals of course raises questions about what type of enforcement would accompany such provisions; in particular would the courts be vested with the duty to enforce social and environmental rights etc., the constitutional appropriateness of such a duty the competence of judges to execute it. The final substantive proposal in Scotland’s Future is for an examination of the war power and a constitutional guarantee that this power would be shared by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. Separately, the Government has also suggested constitutional provisions on Scotland’s system of local government.

The paper also turns to process and it is here that the two stage approach emerges. The first stage after the referendum would be the interim period within which Scotland would become independent. The intention is that during this period of some 15-16 months up to March 2016, agreements will be reached between the Scottish and UK Governments on this transition, establishing the timetable towards ‘independence day’ in March 2016. All of this would pave the way for the scheduled elections to the Scottish Parliament in May that year, which would on this proposal become elections to the Parliament of an independent country.

Scotland’s Future acknowledges that the following issues would need to be the subject of  negotiation and agreement: ‘the division of financial and other assets and liabilities (including oil revenues and assignation of other tax revenues, military bases and overseas assets), the transfer to the Scottish Parliament and Government of political authority over institutions previously controlled at Westminster… and the timetable for the speediest safe removal of weapons of mass destruction from Scotland.’ Interestingly, there is also reference to the ‘on-going co-operative arrangements that the peoples of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland would share’. It is not clear what is meant by this, although notably the Scottish Government during its period in office between 2007 and 2011 produced a White Paper ‘Scotland’s Future: Draft Referendum (Scotland) Bill Consultation Paper’  which famously stated that under independence ‘the social union with the remainder of the UK would be maintained, with the nations continuing to co-operate on a range of matters’. It is not clear if this is what is meant by ‘on-going co-operative arrangements’ in Scotland’s Future. It is also acknowledged in Scotland’s Future that some matters will remain unresolved until after independence as happened in the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia; in other words even after 2016 there would still be an on-going period of gradual separation.

Turning to process, it is also suggested that the Scottish Government will seek to make the post-referendum negotiations inclusive (2.7) by inviting ‘representatives from the other parties in the Scottish Parliament, together with representatives of Scottish civic society’ to join in these negotiations and in helping to ensure ‘the continuity of those public services which are in reserved areas.’ The basis for the interim arrangements would be a ‘constitutional platform’ to facilitate the new Parliament and Government elected in 2016. There would potentially be something of a constitutional vacuum after ‘independence day’ when the writ of the Scotland Act would no longer run but in which no new constitution would have yet been promulgated. And so (2.10) ‘until that constitution is drafted and comes into force, arrangements will be in place from independence day to consolidate the existing rights of citizens and give the Scottish Parliament and Government the legal, financial and other powers necessary to govern Scotland effectively across the full range of national issues. These arrangements will form Scotland’s constitutional platform.’ A number of questions arise: where would sovereignty rest in this period – would the Scottish Parliament take on a new sovereign power through the constitutional platform, or would there be some notional reversion to the sovereignty of the pre-1707 Scottish Parliament? And what of the Crown, the Privy Council etc.? Finally, Scotland’s Future proposes a constitutional path to terminate Westminster’s authority. The UK Parliament would legislate ‘to acknowledge the end of its power to legislate for Scotland’ (2.13) in a way similar to the Malta Independence Act 1964 and the 1931 Statute of Westminster.

There is also some discussion of the process towards a written constitution. Scotland’s Future suggests the possibility of a constitutional convention to be convened by the newly elected independent Scottish Parliament to draft this (1.7). It is not clear what shape this would take but it ‘should engage all the people of Scotland in the process of nation-building and allow them a say in defining how our country will work. (1.6)’ Reference is made to the citizen-led assemblies and constitutional conventions convened in British Columbia (2004), the Netherlands (2006), Ontario (2007) and Iceland (2010) as well as the citizen-led constitutional convention convened in Ireland in 2012. Given that such an open process is proposed we must assume that the substantive proposals for the written constitution set out in Scotland’s Future would themselves be open to revision. For example, such a constitutional convention may well decide not to include social rights and could also opt for a republican rather than monarchical system of government etc. Finally, another question is, would there be referendum to ratify this constitution and would the referendum find its way into the constitution as a standard mechanism of constitutional amendment? What we know of referendum use is that it tends to be contagious; once used to change a system of government it often finds its way into a new constitution as part of the process of future change.

It is likely that these issues will be discussed in detail over the next 18 months. Regardless of the outcome of the referendum they may well also prompt wider UK debates about constitutional change and could also help frame the landscape for further constitutional re-thinking in Scotland, even in the event of a majority No vote.

 Stephen Tierney is Director, Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law. This blog is based upon a paper given to the Law Society of Scotland on 7 March 2013. I am grateful to those present for a most fruitful discussion of the paper.

Suggested citation: Stephen Tierney, ‘After the referendum – the Scottish Government’s proposal for a written Constitution’ ,  UK Const. L. Blog (12 March 2013) (available at http://ukconstitutionallaw.org).

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by | February 19, 2013 · 9:30 am

Event: Seminar on the impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka 27 February 2013

BHRClogo_1The Bar Human Rights Committee invites UK Constitutional Law Group members and blog readers to attend a seminar on Wednesday 27 February 2013, 6-8 pm, on the impeachment of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka. Further details are here.

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by | February 15, 2013 · 2:46 pm

Please join or renew your UK Constitutional Law Group membership for 2013

Pound CoinsReaders of this blog are invited to support the UK Constitutional Law Group by paying a £15 annual membership subscription (which runs for the calendar year 2013). This can either be done online here or a cheque payable to ‘University College London’ sent to the Group’s treasurer, Professor Dawn Oliver at: UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG.

Your subscription will make you a member of the International Association of Constitutional Law, of which the Group is an affiliated organisation. Details of the 2014 IALC world congress in Oslo can be found here. The Group must find €250 a year in fees to the IACL and there are costs in running the blog. Thank you for your support!

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by | January 27, 2013 · 2:18 pm

Andrew Le Sueur: Wikipedia on the British constitution

ALeS NYC 2012 bwAs everybody reading this blog will know, Wikipedia is an online, multilingual, free encyclopaedia compiled using Wiki software. What may be less widely known is the process by which articles on Wikipedia are developed. Anybody with access to the Internet and some basic computer skills can create new articles and edit existing ones. Expert knowledge of the topic in hand is not required: this is not a place for dissemination of original research; instead, contributors are expected to cite secondary sources and adopt a neutral point of view (“NPV”). Errors – some made maliciously, others in good faith – abound. The great majority of contributors use noms de plume or lurk behind the anonymity of IP addresses.  It is, however, among the 100 most popular websites in the world. Thanks to Google, it is often the first port of call for people trying to find out about a subject.

The Wikipedia phenomenon has itself become a subject of academic study from a variety of disciplines. Research questions have included whether it is based on “wisdom of crowds” effects (huge numbers of people making large numbers of edits) or driven by “elite” users? How do editors coordinate their contributions? How are rules and procedures created and implemented within the editor community? Why do people spend time editing it?

I want to consider the Wikipedia article “Constitution of the United Kingdom” (to which synonyms such as “British constitution” are directed). This is worth doing for several different reasons. It is probably among the most read pieces of writing on the subject: what we know for sure is that it has been viewed 69220 times in the last 90 days. So far as I can tell, it has been written by amateurs rather than people with a professional or academic interest in the subject matter: as such, it provides a snapshot of a collective effort to capture what is regarded as important about the constitution. I want also to suggest that the quality of the article raises questions about the role of academics and other experts in promoting public understanding of the constitution.

The article’s history and contributors

The first version of the article was started in February 2003, two years after the launch of Wikipedia. During the ensuing 10 years, 564 distinct contributors have developed the article. It was set in motion by an editor known as “Jtdirl”, who describes himself as an Irish “cultural creative” and “postmodern idealist” who subscribes to the view that “This user does not believe Wikipedia takes the expertise and knowledge of academic contributors seriously enough”; but by October 2005, Jtdirl seems to have stopped editing the article, leaving it to others to carry on the work.

Another early editor of the article was “Deus Ex”, who seems to have stopped editing in 2005, explaining “I will not be active in Wikipedia editing for the foreseeable future. I cannot justify spending significant amounts of time on Wikipedia. I am also beginning to become frustrated by the lack of direction and progress – to become a truly reliable encyclopaedia, Wikipedia must have stable versions of important articles verified by qualified experts. … the problem with Wikipedia-in the current set up, it is simply not reliable enough to be considered an encyclopaedia”.

By far the most prolific contributor is “Grover Cleveland”, who to date has made 91 changes to the article. He contributes across a range of subject matter, including US politics and classical music. In all, ten contributors made ten or more “edits”; two appear to be lawyers though not specialists in public law. Several hundred more have made a small number of (often very minor) changes to the article.

Conclusion: the article is the work of non-experts.

Assessing the quality of the article

Wikipedia users are invited to rate articles using a widget at the end of the article. The “Constitution of the United Kingdom” receives relatively high scores as “trustworthy”, “objective”, “complete” and “well-written”. This is a generous assessment.

Any more detailed assessment has to recognise that the article is part of a cascade of linked articles. For example, devolution gets relatively light coverage in the article but there is a separate one on that subject. The article is, in places, historical in its approach though it fails to present a clear chronology of the development of the constitution.

It contains a number of erroneous statements or assertions that are misleading without qualification or further explanation: “Parliament has the power to determine the length of its term.” “By the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 [Parliament] has the power to remove individual judges from office for misconduct”. (Yes, but rather misleading). “However, as part of Parliamentary Sovereignty, Parliament could create new prerogatives if it so wished regardless”. “The Prime Minister is normally a member of the House of Commons.”

The balance of coverage in the article is lop-sided. There is discussion (twice) about the Church of England but the ECHR and Human Rights Act 1998 is relegated to a passing reference in a paragraph towards the end under the heading “Other constitutional reforms”.

The article would not pass a peer review process for an academic journal and nor would it receive a good mark as an undergraduate essay (though I suspect it has been cut and pasted into some over the years). But those, of course, are not fair points of comparison.

Conclusion: the article, like many of those linked to it, could be much better than it currently is.

Promoting public understanding of the UK constitution

Academics and other experts from time to time attempt to promote public understanding of the British constitution. This can be done through books (there are some valuable contributions in the New Oxford Companion to Law (OUP 2008), edited by Peter Cane and Joanne Conaghan; and Hilaire Barnett’s Britain Unwrapped: Government and Constitution Explained (Penguin 2002) would be another example). The cost and lack of immediate access to books, however, put them at a disadvantage in the digital age.

Another avenue is that taken by The Constitution Society, whose website (see here) is its main educational resource: it contains some imaginative and well-designed ways of communicating facts and ideas about the constitution.

What I want to suggest is complementary to these attempts to promote public understanding: that people with expertise on aspects of the British constitution contribute to articles on Wikipedia. A coalition of the willing could, relatively easily, improve and develop the amateur efforts of the past 10 years.

Who will join me? I’ve made a few forays in Wikipedia (always using my real name). I’ve improved Stanley de Smith’s biography. In 2011, I rewrote and expanded the article on “Law of Jersey” and related articles. I made early contributions to the article “Supreme Court of the United Kingdom”. Wikipedia is not a place for preciousness: one’s carefully crafted sentences can be hijacked modified by unknown contributors; irrelevances (to my mind) introduced; some dubious assertions tacked on. But if one accepts that writing for Wikipedia is more like standing on a soapbox addressing a crowd than a contribution to a highly refined academic debate, it’s possible to make it a better read. And that’s the point: people, in their tens of thousands, do read Wikipedia. If those of us with expertise want to reach them, then let’s roll up our sleeves and get stuck in to editing.

 Andrew Le Sueur is co-convenor of the UK Constitutional Law Group, a member of the executive committee of the International Association of Constitutional Law and Professor of Public Law at Queen Mary, University of London.

 Suggested citation: A. Le Sueur ‘Wikipedia on the British constitution’ UK Const. L. Blog (27th January 2013) (available at http://ukconstitutionallaw.org)

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by | January 17, 2013 · 10:20 am

Events of interest to UKCLG members and blog readers …

  1. Statute Law Society lecture: Jonathan Swift QC, ‘Constitutional Statutes: Construction and Legal Adjudication’. Monday 28 January 2013, 6-7 pm, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London.

  2. European and National Constitutional Law Closing Conference: ‘The European Constitution is best perceived as a composite Constitution, comprising constitutional rules and principles developed at European level, complemented by (common) national constitutional rules and principles as well as those from other sources such as the ECHR and international law. Crucially, European as well as national law are involved in defining a European constitutional law’. The ERC-funded European and National Constitutional Law (EuNaCon) project (2008 – 13) was set up to better understand and improve the body of knowledge on the national component of Europe’s composite Constitution. As such, national constitutional traditions and principles have been analysed and compared in four key areas of constitutional law, and the insights obtained have been used to formulate a better understanding of Europe’s composite Constitution. EuNaCon marks its successful conclusion with a Closing Conference that takes place between 20-22 February 2013 in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

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by | December 4, 2012 · 8:34 am

Event reminder: Neil Walker’s 2012 “Public Law” lecture, Thursday, Queen Mary, Mile End, 6.30 pm

Details here http://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2012/10/15/event-invitation-to-the-2012-public-law-lecture-thursday-6-december-2012-at-6-30-pm/ CPD accredited.

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