Tag: Parliamentary sovereignty
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Nick Barber, Tom Hickman and Jeff King: Pulling the Article 50 ‘Trigger’: Parliament’s Indispensable Role
In this post we argue that as a matter of domestic constitutional law, the Prime Minister is unable to issue a declaration under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – triggering our withdrawal from the European Union – without having been first authorised to do so by an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament. Were…
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TT Arvind and Lindsay Stirton: Why the Judicial Power Project Is Wrong about Anisminic
Editors’ note: Following discussion with the editors of the Judicial Power Project (JPP) Blog, the UK Constitutional Law Blog is prepared, subject to editorial decision, to print replies to JPP posts. The Judicial Power Project lists fifty supposedly problematic judicial decisions. Although a small number of these are private law cases, the vast majority concern…
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Graeme Cowie: Prisoners to Devolved Fortune? The Right to Vote and the Scotland Act 2016
The Hirst (No 2) v United Kingdom judgment has proven to be one of the most contentious of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. Its subject matter, prisoner voting, has also served both to illustrate and to some extent to define the relationship between that Court and our domestic legal and constitutional order.…
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Mike Gordon: The UK’s Sovereignty Uncertainty
The sovereignty strand of the renegotiation of the UK’s position in the EU was always likely to raise challenges. This is, in part, because ‘sovereignty’ itself is a contested idea: it can mean different things to different people in different contexts, and may raise different considerations depending on the perspective from which it is confronted.…
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Event: The New Parliamentary Sovereignty, King’s College London
The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London would like to invite you to a seminar with Vanessa MacDonnell, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law: The New Parliamentary Sovereignty Friday 22 May 2015 15.00 to 16.30 SW1.18, Somerset House East Wing Strand Campus King’s College London WC2R 0RN London In…
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Edward Kirton-Darling: Missing: political genius. If found, please return to the British People, care of Palace of Westminster, SW1A.
If Scottish voters chose independence in the referendum in September, the SNP confirmed on 16 June that a written constitution for Scotland would be drawn up. Where does that leave the rest of the UK? In an endeavour to consider what Scottish independence would mean for the rUK, this post considers Lord Bingham’s accounts of…
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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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Stuart Lakin: The Sovereignty of Law: Freedom, Constitution and Common Law by Professor Trevor Allan: Some Preliminary Thoughts
Most readers of this Blog will undoubtedly be familiar with the work of Professor TRS Allan. It is difficult to think of anyone who has made a more significant contribution to UK public law scholarship in recent decades. For the uninitiated, Allan is best known for his radical challenge to constitutional orthodoxy in Britain. Over…
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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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Dawn Oliver: Parliamentary Sovereignty in Comparative Perspective
I Parliamentary sovereignty in other countries In this post I defend the absence of judicial strike down powers in the UK by exploring the ways in which other countries besides the UK manage to function well as liberal democracies without courts enjoying strike down powers, and looking at some of the negative aspects of the…