Tag: Northern Ireland
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Richard Martin: Scenes from the Garvaghy Road, 2026: Protest, Police and Public Law in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland’s so-called marching season is usually petering out by now. This year looks to be different. On Sunday 27 September, after a 28-year wait and a flurry of last-minute legal challenges, the Orange Order was given permission for 35 of its members to complete the return leg of its march from Drumcree parish church…
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Patrick Graham: Legality, Legitimacy, and Durability – The Limits of Constitutional Reform in Northern Ireland
There is some unreality to the current clamour for reform of Northern Ireland’s devolved government. The three major non-unionist parties, as well as the British and Irish governments, have proposed or are open to substantial changes in the teeth of unionist opposition. That debate too often overlooks cross-community consent as a principle shaping constitutional form,…
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Nikos Skoutaris: Fault Lines: The UK’s Asymmetric Constitution and the Problem of Self-Determination After May 2026
For the first time in the history of devolution, nationalist or independence-oriented parties lead all three devolved nations simultaneously: Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the SNP in Scotland. Meanwhile, Reform UK topped the national equivalent vote in England. The United Kingdom’s political geography has been fundamentally redrawn. What has not…
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Francesca Jackson: The Oath of Allegiance, and the Battle for Independence
In the UK and Commonwealth, an oath of allegiance is a promise to be loyal to the monarch, their heirs and successors. Also known as ‘swearing in’, it is pledged in various contexts, including at the beginning of a Parliament and when government ministers assume office. The allegiance is pledged to the monarch as the…
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Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s Power to Legislate for a Devolved Part of the UK: Part II – Some Challenges Posed by Northern Ireland
Introduction In its judgments in Continuity Bill and Treaty Incorporation, the Supreme Court identified what we describe in the first part of this post as the ‘conditioning limitation’. The purpose of that first part was to demonstrate how the conditioning limitation potentially threatens otherwise constitutionally innocuous or unexceptional exercises of devolved legislative power. Although those…
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Anurag Deb and Nicholas Kilford: Conditioning the UK Parliament’s power to legislate for a devolved part of the UK: Part I – The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022
Introduction The Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 (‘CCA’) is, from a constitutional perspective, a fairly unassuming, if far-reaching, exercise of devolved legislative power. It is an example of a devolved part of the UK seizing the opportunity the devolution framework provides to ‘design policies and take public spending decisions that more closely align with…
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Thomas Horsley: Relations Reset or Regression? Devolution and the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill
On 4 September 2024, the UK Government published the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill (the PRMB). Introduced in the Lords, the PRMB is certainly not the most headline-grabbing Bill announced in the King’s Speech. Its substance – product standards and weights and measures – is important, but unlikely to excite the masses. However, as the…
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Kacper Majewski: Re Allister: The End of ‘Constitutional Statutes’?
On 8 February, the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous judgment in Re Allister [2023] UKSC 5. What follows is an attempt to clarify the judgment’s significance for the doctrine of constitutional statutes, as first canvassed by Laws LJ in Thoburn v Sunderland City Council [2002] EWHC 195 (Admin). I think that the Court’s remarks in Re Allister can be read…
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Anurag Deb: Direct Rule in Northern Ireland and the Power to Make Irrational Laws
The townland of Carrickmore in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland is the ancestral home of legendary Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. It is also near an ancient and beautifully preserved Neolithic court tomb, excavated between 1979 and 1982. Carrickmore was at the heart of a different funerary matter when, on 3 February 2023, the Northern Ireland…