Tag: Entrenchment
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Edmund Robinson: Re Allister and the entrenchment ‘road not taken’: A rejoinder to Kacper Majewski
Kacper Majewski has written an excellent, thought-provoking, piece on the subject of constitutional statutes, in light of the Re Allister UK Supreme Court ruling. The UKSC may, he argues, have effectively rendered the ‘constitutional statute’ concept ‘legally redundant’. This may be correct, and there is certainly support for that position within the decision, but it is important to complete the…
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Adam Tucker: Entrenchment, Parliamentary Sovereignty, and the Limited Radicalism of the Brown Report
The publication of the Report of the Commission on the UK’s Future is attracting widespread attention. The centrepiece of its constitutional content is the replacement of the House of Lords with a new second chamber with new composition and a reformed role, which would have particular responsibility for territorial aspects of the constitution (discussed here) and act as guardian…
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Chris Piggott-McKellar: Digging for Trouble? The Attempt to Enshrine a Fracking Ban in the Constitution of the Australian State of Victoria
Australia’s readiness to change Prime Ministers is not matched by its readiness to change the Australian Constitution. While the occupant of The Lodge (Australia’s equivalent of Number 10) has changed seven times in the past 11 years, the federal constitution has only been changed eight times since 1901. This is because the rigid Australian Constitution…
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Ciaran White: Northern Ireland Workers’ Rights and the Draft Withdrawal Agreement: The Quasi-Constitutional Entrenchment of EU-derived Labour Law Rights
Northern Ireland employment law is a devolved issue and its statute book has always been largely distinct and separate from that applicable in GB. This always had the potential to allow for NI-specific protections of EU-derived labour law rights post-Brexit, as I have suggested on other occasions. Had there been political consensus in the Northern…
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Joe Atkinson: Parliamentary Intent and the Sewel Convention as a Legislatively Entrenched Political Convention
One interesting finding in Miller is that it appears to recognise the Sewel Convention as a new form of constitutional convention; one that is legislatively entrenched but remains a convention rather than becoming a legal rule. This aspect of the Court’s judgment raises more questions than it answers. It would have been helpful for them…
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Scot Peterson: Constitutional Entrenchment in England and the UK
Frequently people think that there are only two ways address flexibility in a constitution: to legally entrench an entire document and to protect it with strong judicial oversight, or to have a political constitution and a sovereign parliament, which, in the words of A.V. Dicey, ‘has … the right to make or unmake any law…
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Adam Perry and Farrah Ahmed: Are Constitutional Statutes ‘Quasi-Entrenched’?
The Supreme Court issued its decision in H v Lord Advocate (pdf) in 2012. The decision has been virtually ignored by constitutional scholars, but we believe it may be of great constitutional significance. In this post we explain why, starting with some background about constitutional statutes. Commentators have lately considered how constitutional statutes should be…