Tag: Jackson
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Robert Craig: Report of Proceedings: Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union
Introduction Thursday 13 October 2016 marked the beginning of the hearing over the constitutional question of whether Article 50 may be triggered by the Government without further statutory authorisation. This post provides a report of the day’s proceedings. The two further days are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday next week. The first section sets out…
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Paul Reid: ‘English votes on English law’: Just Another Running Repair
It has taken a while, but we have a solution to the West Lothian question, so we are told. English votes, on English law. By amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, English (or, where appropriate, English and Welsh) MPs will have to approve English (or English and Welsh) only provisions in Grand…
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Douglas Edlin: Will Britain Have a Marbury?
Marbury v Madison is the most famous judicial decision in US history, written by the most important judge in US history. According to the traditional understanding, Chief Justice John Marshall brilliantly side-stepped a looming political clash between former President John Adams and newly elected President Thomas Jefferson. In doing so, Marshall declined the additional power Congress attempted…
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Derek O’Brien: The Basic Structure Doctrine and the Courts of the Commonwealth Caribbean
The basic structure doctrine, as first expounded by the Indian Supreme Court in the early 1970s in Kesavanand Bharati v Kerala (A.I.R. 1973 SC 1461), asserts that the law-making powers of a legislature are not unlimited in as much as they do not extend to altering the ‘basic structure’ of the constitution. Some 40 years…
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Se-shauna Wheatle: The Residual Powers of the Court
There has, justifiably, been much debate about the implications of the judgments of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in R (Jackson) v Attorney General [2005] UKHL 56, [2006] AC 262 and AXA General Insurance Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2011] UKSC 46, [2011] 3 WLR 871. What is perhaps the most constitutionally significant…
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Mike Gordon: What is the Point of Exceptional Circumstances Review?
A great deal of the controversy surrounding the recent case of Axa General Insurance Ltd v Lord Advocate [2011] UKSC 46, already much discussed on this blog, stems from the notion of ‘exceptional circumstances review’. The Supreme Court’s decision that it has the authority as a matter of common law to reject Acts of the…
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Dawn Oliver: Parliamentary Sovereignty: A Pragmatic or Principled Doctrine?
Imagine that Parliament has recently passed a provision authorising the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists. The measure was passed during a public panic about terrorism. Public opinion and the press and parliamentarians of the party in government which promoted the legislation were strongly in favour of using such powers. The Home Secretary orders…