Category: Wales
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John Harrington, Erin Thomas and Barbara Hughes-Moore: Is there a Welsh Health Law? Values, Divergence and Devolution after COVID-19
Viruses can move the world and COVID-19 has unquestionably tested the United Kingdom’s constitutional settlement. This is not simply a matter of the generic allocation of powers as between London on the one hand, and Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast on the other. It also concerns the content of substantive law in discrete fields. Lawmakers, practitioners…
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Keith Bush and Huw Pritchard: Implications of the Independent Review of Administrative Law for Devolved Government in Wales
(The following is an adapted version of part of the response of the Wales Public Law and Human Rights Association (“Public Law Wales”) to the IRAL call for evidence) The Context The devolution of legislative and executive powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has now been a feature of the UK constitution for over…
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Jeff King and Stephen Tierney: The House of Lords Constitution Committee reports on the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill is something of an imperfect storm, provoking the ire both of the devolved authorities who consider it an unacceptable circumscription of devolved competence and those aghast that the Bill empowers ministers to act contrary to the UK’s international obligations. Today the Constitution Committee reports on the measure and doesn’t…
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Ronan Cormacain: Legislative Competence in Northern Ireland and the Independent Review of Administrative Law
Introduction On 31 July 2020, the Government established an independent panel to take forward its Independent Review of Administrative Law. The terms of reference for this panel are very broad, as pointed out by Elliott and Hemsworth. Given that administrative law is a devolved matter for Northern Ireland, UK wide reform is problematic. The purpose…
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Theodore Konstadinides, Lee Marsons and Maurice Sunkin: Reviewing Judicial Review: The constitutional importance of the Independent Review of Administrative Law 2020
Last year, the Government committed itself to establishing a Commission on the Constitution, Democracy and Rights, which would consider reform of the UK’s constitutional order, including judicial review and the Human Rights Act 1998. Instead, on 30 July 2020, the Government launched an ostensibly narrower Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) to examine the need…
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Gareth Evans: Debating Welsh Independence: The Political and Constitutional Pathways to a Referendum
On 15 July 2020, on the final day of sitting before summer recess, the Senedd considered a series of motions and amendments, in a debate on Wales’ constitutional future. The original motion in this debate, tabled by Plaid Cymru, focussed on Welsh independence, and called on the current Welsh Government to seek the authority from…
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Gregory Davies and Dan Wincott: Brexit, the press and the territorial constitution
In the early years of devolution, Feldman described constitutional discourse in the UK as ‘a sea of conflicting visions’. More than a decade later, Brexit and now Covid-19 remind us again just how differently the UK is understood. Throughout this crisis, many media outlets have displayed a marked inability to distinguish between English and devolved…
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Tom Hickman: A very English lockdown relaxation
Yesterday witnessed a very English relaxation of the Coronavirus lockdown. I say that not because the relaxation only occurred in England (although it did only occur in England) but because of the nature of the changes themselves. Picnics, tennis, golf, garden centres, country outings in the family car and house buying are all back on.…
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Gareth Evans: Devolution in Wales: From Assembly to Parliament
On 6 May 2020, the National Assembly for Wales (hereafter “the Assembly”) will officially be renamed, adopting the new title of Senedd Cymru / Welsh Parliament. The change comes as a result of section 9 of the Wales Act 2017, amending the Government of Wales Act 2006 (hereafter “GOWA”) to include the new section 111A…
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Sean Molloy: Covid-19, Emergency Legislation and Sunset Clauses
On 25 March, the UK passed the Coronavirus Act 2020 as part of its attempt to manage the coronavirus outbreak. The Act introduces a wave of temporary measures designed to either amend existing legislative provisions or introduce new statutory powers in order to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 (See Nicholas Clapham’s Conversation post here…