Tag: Sewel Convention
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Kenneth Campbell QC: Henry VIII Comes to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Other Devolution Questions in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill
Introductory As the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ of rhetoric becomes the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill of reality, the scale of the task facing Parliament – predicted by academic and practitioner commentators – is made evident. Mark Elliott and Tobias Lock have each produced commendably thorough introductions to the Bill, and there are a number of themes…
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Colin Harvey and Daniel Holder: The Great Repeal Bill and the Good Friday Agreement – Cementing a Stalemate or Constitutional Collision Course?
Introduction – a perfect storm? As predicted, Brexit is proving to be profoundly destabilising for the peace process and the constitutional politics of Northern Ireland. An outcome that lacks the consent of the people of Northern Ireland (a majority voted to remain) is re-opening fundamental questions about future relationships across these islands. We argue that…
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George Peretz QC: Storm Clouds over the Welsh Mountains: Agriculture and Devolution
A report by the National Assembly for Wales’ Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee published on 24 March received more publicity than might have been expected. That was largely because the chairman of the Committee, Mark Reckless AM, is a leading member of UKIP. Despite that fact, the Committee’s report emphasised the importance to…
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Mark Elliott and Stephen Tierney: The ‘Great Repeal Bill’ and Delegated Powers
A good deal of the legal and constitutional interest generated by Brexit has so far, perhaps unsurprisingly, focussed upon the very beginning of the withdrawal process. Initially, all eyes were on the courts, with the Supreme Court holding in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for the European Union [2017] UKSC 5 that the Article…
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Tobias Lock and Tom Gerald Daly: Brexit and the British Bill of Rights: Capturing Constitutional Complexity
Euroscepticism – usually framed as an argument from national sovereignty – was an important driving force behind Brexit, but also serves as a key motivator behind efforts to reform domestic human rights law. Calls to ‘scrap the Human Rights Act’ (HRA) and to replace it with a British Bill of Rights (BBR) are usually accompanied…
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Joe Atkinson: Parliamentary Intent and the Sewel Convention as a Legislatively Entrenched Political Convention
One interesting finding in Miller is that it appears to recognise the Sewel Convention as a new form of constitutional convention; one that is legislatively entrenched but remains a convention rather than becoming a legal rule. This aspect of the Court’s judgment raises more questions than it answers. It would have been helpful for them…
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David Scott: Miller, Sewel, and the Human Rights Act
Many celebrated Miller’s outcome, imposing a Parliamentary “brake” (however brief) on the triggering of Article 50. But the Supreme Court’s unanimous agreement on the devolution issues [129–151 for the majority; agreement in the dissents at 242, 243, and 282] may have weakened opposition to the Government’s “other” crusade—against the European Court of Human Rights. Devolution…
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Asanga Welikala: The Need for a ‘Cartesian Cleaning of the Augean Stables’? Miller and the Territorial Constitution
It is clear that the UKSC’s observations on the meaning and effect of ss. 1 and 2 of the Scotland Act 2016 in Miller have deep consequences for both the constitutional law and the constitutional politics of the UK’s territorial arrangements, and therefore for the Union itself. In relation to the law, some serious questions…
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Eugenio Velasco and Conor Crummey: The Reading of Section 28(8) of the Scotland Act 1998 as a Political Convention in Miller
The holding of the majority in Miller that section 28(8) of the Scotland Act 1998, which echoes the wording of the Sewel Convention, creates no legal obligation on the UK Parliament to seek the consent of the Scottish Parliament before passing legislation to leave the European Union was remarkably underdeveloped in comparison with its commendably…
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Paul Reid: Time to Give the Sewel Convention Some (Political) Bite?
Constitutional conventions are, the Supreme Court has confirmed, just that: conventions. The courts are “neither the parents nor the guardians” of such conventions; “merely observers” (para.146). The Sewel Convention “has an important role in facilitating harmonious relationships” between Westminster and the devolved legislatures but it is not for the court to “police” its operation (para.151).…