Tag: Robinson v Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
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Mark Elliott and Nicholas Kilford: Devolution in the Supreme Court: Legislative Supremacy, Parliament’s ‘Unqualified’ Power, and ‘Modifying’ the Scotland Act
In the Continuity Bill Reference, the Supreme Court advanced a striking analysis of the implications for devolution of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty — or, more specifically, of the provision in the Scotland Act 1998 that had hitherto been understood merely to affirm that doctrine. The provision in question is section 28(7), which says of…
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Anurag Deb: Identity: Northern Ireland’s Gordian Knot
On 14 October 2019, the Upper Tribunal (UT) handed down judgment in SSHD v De Souza, immediately dividing commentators both in and outside Northern Ireland. Briefly, the UT had heard the Home Secretary’s appeal against the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) decision which had declared that the American claimant (respondent in the UT) was entitled to apply…
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Ruth Keating: Rigorous Impartiality and a Coalition of Chaos
“What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.” Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists during the Home Rule crisis, 1921 Amongst Theresa May’s list of growing concerns is a potential landmark…
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Raj Desai: Miller and the Flexibility of the UK Constitution
The Government placed considerable reliance on the flexibility of the UK constitution in its appeal to the Supreme Court in Miller, urging that this flexibility be employed to take full account of the factual and political context of the Brexit referendum in determining the legal questions before the court. In this post, I suggest that…
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Jeff King and Nick Barber: In Defence of Miller
Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has stimulated quite a bit of debate. Some criticism of the decision has been well-informed and thoughtful, whilst some of it has been, to put it charitably, less worthy of engagement. In this post we respond to what we view as the strongest arguments against…