It is established that the UK does not have a single, written and codified constitution that encompasses ground rules on how it should be governed. The first part of this essay outlines the movement of the United Kingdom towards legal constitutionalism which then brings to the consideration of the need for judicial diversity in the second part. To make this argument, this paper analyses the influence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and European Union (EU) law including domestic laws onto the dilution of political elements in the UK; thus transitioning towards a legal constitution. Before the 1970s, Dicey’s view that ‘no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the …show more content…
However, the incorporation of legal constitutionalism prove the increasing need for this reform in order to prevent the state’s powers from being ultra vires. The legal approach is necessary to protect basic human rights from being taken away by higher authorities because what use is a constitution if it fails to operate fairly without bias? The European Communities Act 1972 (ECA 1972) which is the foundation of the UK’s entry into the EU led to the erosion of its parliamentary sovereignty. The enactment of this Act led to the implication that any conflicting domestic laws in English courts were subjected to the supremacy of European law. This concept was affirmed in Factortame No.2.[5] However, Lord Bridge asserted that Parliament voluntarily accepted the limitations[6] because it can repeal the ECA 1972 at any desired time by leaving the EU. Contrary to this, section 18 of the European Union Act 2011 merely confirms that EU laws apply within the UK—according to section 2(1) of the ECA 1972. It may be argued that the EU membership did not cause any considerable change to the UK’s basic constitution. But from this point, it can be agreed that legal aspects are beginning to surface onto the constitutional system. Most importantly,
One strength of the UK constitution is the flexibility that it has, for the reason that the constitution is uncodified or unwritten and is therefore not entrenched in law. Due to the fact that the UK’s constitution is uncodified or unwritten, it has an opportunity to modernise itself to the ever changing society or any other new circumstances that may arise. An example of the flexibility of the UK’s
“In theory Parliament has total power. It is sovereign” were the words of Dicey in his book Law of the Constitution. A.V. Dicey was a British jurist and constitutional theorist in the 20th century who was adamant and argued extensively about the absolute nature of sovereignty of the Parliament which he derived from Coke and Blackstone. He had said “"Parliament" has
The United Kingdom can easily change their laws than most countries, which can be beneficial to new situations. Furthermore, the British Constitution does not have a set stone and it illustrate to their residents on how as well as when political power is allocated, which allows politicians and attorneys to relied on the constitutional authorities to grasp a better understanding.
Britain, to begin with, has no written constitution due to the country’s own constitutional structure’s stability. It remains uncodified, yet it’s legal sources stem from Acts of parliament, European Union law, equity and common law,. Therefore the varying powers of parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law will be considered against these sources.
In 1966 the House of Lords announced that it would in future be prepared to depart from a former decision by the House when it appeared right to do so . It is vital that the judges update the law according to the society and values today. An example of this case of R v R where a man was charged for raping his wife. This matter was brought up to the House of Lords, the judges pointed out that the ‘status of a married woman in our law have changed quite dramatically. A husband and wife are now for all practical purposes equal partners in marriage.’ They also highlighted that the common law is ‘capable of evolving in the light of changing social, economic and cultural developments.’ This implied that judges (House of Lords) can change the law only if it is a necessity.
We can tell that the supremacy of EU law above the parliamentary sovereignty in the context with the UK’s statutory recognition of human rights renders parliament obsolete and relic. And the main motive of this essay is to tell that the EU laws supremacy have brought a rapid change as the whole. Some people would like to say that parliament can entangle some few adverse significant which can affect the sovereignty whereas then no one would bother to follow or talk about the irrelevant doctrine. PS is also called to be one of the fundamental head of democratic government where it must contain an elected assembly who will be held responsible for representing people and it is the responsibility of assembly to draft the laws that can be applied for whole population. An act of parliament has the legal power where the courts are unwilling to blame other things that falls shortage of some reason for the preeminent pose. The supreme legal authority also lies with the parliament where it can create or end up with any law. Legislative body is identified to have the absolute sovereignty in all the institutions of government and is also said to be the supreme head.
The legitimacy of the ECJ to uphold EU legislation is a necessary component of effective human rights policy. The history of its increase in power is worth noting. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the ECJ’s location in Luxembourg, far from the political fray in Brussels and Strasburg, prevented it from becoming a strong body of the EU. Yet, throughout that time the court methodically built case-law that would lead to its surge in influence in the 1980s. The two most significant developments of the court during this time period were direct effect and supremacy. These twin pillars clarified the relationship between the national and EU legal orders.
During the second chapter of his book, Hudson addresses a second challenge: The Imperial Judiciary. Within this, he looks at “two alternative theoretical approaches” surrounding the judiciary and its power, to better fit with a democratic government (Hudson, 88). These two alternative theoretical approaches brew down to either being a judicial originalist (strict constructionists) or a judicial pragmatist (living Constitution).
Another statute that supports that indeed the British constitution is becoming more codified is the 2005 constitutional reform act which separate the judiciary form the executive and legislature by creating a supreme court court which more adopts the idea of separate powers mostly found n codified constitutions like the US for example , it also took over the judicial work of the house of lords, establishing the judicial appointments commission. The prospect of a coalition government in 2010 opens up the discussion even more as it led to the coalition agreement for stability and reform and called for constitutional clarification by the cabinet secretary, which demonstrates that indeed the constitution is becoming more codified as
The reform of the Human Rights Act can illustrate that the constitutional reform did not go far enough. In 1998, the Blair government announced that the citizens ' rights would be safeguarded and strengthened through incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. However, this created a problem as the UK now has two sets of rights – those built up under Common Law and those in the Human Rights Act. These two sets of rights may conflict and, in addition, cases can be taken using these rights to both the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights (which is the supreme court for the European Convention on Human Rights). The UK judiciary is divided on how to resolve this issue.
The second reform of the constitution is the Human Rights Act that was Labour’s first major reform, that came in act in 1998. Before the Human Rights Act the Uk was part European Convention of Human rights that was adopted in 1950. The human rights(HRA) Act came into force in 2000 in the Uk. The HRA has the effect of of codifying the protections in the European convention in the Uk law. This act created a Uk bill of right that is more suitable to represent the population living in the Uk, because of adopting the convention to the needs of britain; this allows British judges to suggest their own way of Judging based on the British culture which is more appealing to the the British
(i) House of Lords suspended the operation of an Act of Parliament where the Act was in conflict with EU law
“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be
Parliamentary Sovereignty is the concept that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the United Kingdom. Kellerman, M. G. (2011) argues that since
The most influential definition of the rule of law is that of the A.V. Dicey. In his work he defines the rule of law to be composed of three central elements. The first element states that “no man is punishable or can be made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts”. This element is designed to deny to governments any rights to make secret or arbitrary laws, or retrospective penal laws, and to limit the discretionary powers of government” . In order to comply with the requirement, it is stated that the rule must be open, clear, accessible and certain. This is supported by Lord Bingham as he argued that the law must be accessible, clear and predictable as wide discretionary powers would lead to arbitrariness which is against the rule of law. This principle is further illustrated by