Tag: Jackson
-
Carwyn Jones: Is Dicey dicey?
For nearly a hundred and fifty years, parliamentary sovereignty or supremacy (the terms are used interchangeably) has been taken as immutable and unchanging by the UK Parliament and the courts. As devolution has developed, the concept deserves greater examination to see whether the concept is as sound as it has been supposed. There is nothing…
-
Tom Spencer: The Sovereignty of Parliament, the Rule of Law, and the High Court of Parliament
Introduction The treatment of ouster clauses in R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal has been said to violate parliamentary sovereignty. This post disagrees. That assertion, it argues, misapprehends the rule of law as founded upon the sovereignty of ‘Parliament’ by ‘the High Court of Parlyament’ as recognised in the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act…
-
Mike Gordon: Privacy International, Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Synthetic Constitution
The case of R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal is the latest in a series of high profile judicial engagements with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The case concerned the legal status of s.68(7) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and in particular, whether this provision constituted a successful attempt to oust…
-
Sam Fowles: Can the Prime Minister Prorogue Parliament to Deliver a No Deal Brexit?
In recent days certain government backbenchers have proposed a new avenue to deliver a “no deal” Brexit. As Sir Edward Leigh put it: “There are only two choices given the EU won’t change the deal and there’s no chance of parliament passing it. One is cancel Brexit: an intolerable denial of democracy. The…
-
Anurag Deb: Privacy International: A Matter of Constitutional Logic and Judicial Trust?
Introduction The High Court and Court of Appeal decisions in Privacy International v IPT have ignited the debate on the ‘validity’ or otherwise of ouster clauses in the UK constitution (see analyses in the Admin Law Blog and the UKCLA Blog). At one end is the argument that ouster clauses prevent the correction of legal…
-
Hayley J. Hooper: Balancing Access to Justice and the Public Interest: Privacy International and Ouster Clauses in the Broader Constitutional Context
In November 2017, the Court of Appeal in R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal unanimously held that a so-called “ouster clause” in respect of the of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) was lawful. This decision may appear odd as out of step with what appears to be a steady march towards increasingly concrete principles…
-
Mike Gordon: Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Implementation of the EU Withdrawal Agreement (Part I)
Editors’ note: This is the first of a two-part contribution. The second part will be posted tomorrow. The Brexit process continues to generate challenges for law, government and the constitution in the UK. The ‘Joint Report from the Negotiators of the European Union and the United Kingdom Government on Progress During Phase 1 of Negotiations…
-
Michal Hain: Guardians of the Constitution – the Constitutional Implications of a Substantive Rule of Law
A constitutional storm is brewing. Whilst it is too early to perform the burial rites for parliamentary sovereignty, the Supreme Court’s decisions in R (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51 and R (Evans) v Attorney-General [2015] UKSC 21 are the beginning of the end of the principle’s unrivalled reign. Two especially thorny constitutional issues…
-
Mikolaj Barczentewicz: Uses and Misuses of the Rule of Recognition in Miller
The jurisprudential concept of the rule of recognition featured several times during the Miller hearings at the Supreme Court. In this short note, I discuss three uses of the concept of the rule of recognition during the Miller hearings and propose one other way in which the concept is relevant to Miller, that was not…
-
Elizabeth Campion: Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: Parliamentary and Governmental Power in the Wake of the EU Referendum
The case of Santos and M v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (CO/3281/2016 and CO/3809/2016) (“Santos“) was heard in the High Court this week by the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and Sales LJ. Santos has been called “one of the most important constitutional law cases ever decided”. The…