The Referendum And Its Impact On The Uk Constitution

“Some lawyers have been attracted to the argument that the union legislation placed constraints on the power of the UK Parliament to legislate, and that the UK Parliament might be unable to alter at least its most important terms. While there are powerful arguments against this view, - it continues to have its supporters. It famously received some judicial support from Lord Cooper in MacCormick v Lord Advocate, and has been referred to in several subsequent cases. However, there has been no case in which a Scottish court has questioned the validity of an Act of Parliament on these grounds. Indeed, whether an Act of the UK Parliament is compatible with the union legislation was treated as, in principle, a non-justiciable issue in MacCormick. However, supporters of the argument have taken comfort from the fact that in MacCormick, Gibson and Pringle Scottish judges reserved their opinion on what would be the case if legislation purported to amend 'fundamental provisions', for example, by abolishing the Church of Scotland or the Court of Session, or by replacing the Scottish system of private law with English

Before evaluating whether or not Parliament is sovereign, it’s important to define what sovereignty means. Sovereignty can be split into two; political and legal. Legal sovereignty is the ultimate power to make laws which will be enforced within the state. Members of Parliament and the Prime Minister have ultimate legal power because they propose and enforce legislation. Citizens have no legal sovereignty because they don’t play a role in the legislative function even though pressure group activity may influence decisions. Political sovereignty is where real political power lies, and depending on the situation political sovereignty doesn’t always lie within Parliament. Critics have argued that due to recent changes, Parliament is no longer

Parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law are both concepts that are key to shaping the British constitution, however there is ambiguity as to which concept is the heart of the UK’s constitutional arrangement in the recent years.

A secondary way in which parliamentary sovereignty in the UK can be seen to be moving is though the introduction of devolution which is challenging the UK parliament’s sovereignty. The UK is a unitary state, so only one body can in theory

‘Parliamentary sovereignty is a constitutional relic. It has been rendered obsolete, in particular, by the supremacy of EU law and the UK’s statutory recognition of human rights. We should no longer talk about this irrelevant doctrine.’

In the recent referendum that took place 14th September 2014. The people of Scotland were asked, “Should Scotland become an independent country?” They had the choice of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The outcome was 2,001,926 (55.30%) no and 1,617,989 (44.70%) yes, which meant

Democracy, by Abraham Lincoln’s definition, is ‘’government of the people, by the people, for the people’’ and referendums allow this to happen. They allow the people to make direct decisions on issues rather than allowing representatives to do so. This means that everyone gets a say and therefore encouraging and promoting political participation. As Dr. Adam Quinn, a senior professor of international politics at Birmingham University says, referendums “intrinsic worth is an exercise in direct democracy. Referendum campaigns engage national publics, often passive and sometimes actively excluded, in the business of political debate and decision-making. Those who see virtue in the idea of a more direct link between the popular will and the levers of power, therefore, admire them as an instrument of empowerment for the too-often neglected people”. Dr. Quinn describes how, using referendums, the majority of the public can take political matters into their own hands. This can be seen when looking at the 1997 election turnout of 76% compared to the turnout in the 1998 referendum ‘The Good Friday Agreement’ in Northern Ireland that had an 81% turnout, considerably higher than the election turnout. This would suggest that referendums do actively strengthen democracy because it allows the decision to be made by the very same people who will be affected by the

25: ‘The use of referendums in the UK since 1997 has done little to strengthen democracy.’ Discuss.

For many years it has been argued that parliamentary sovereignty has, and still is, being eroded. As said by AV Dicey, the word ‘sovereignty’ is used to describe the idea of “the power of law making unrestricted by any legal limit”. Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution, stating that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the UK, able to create and remove any law. This power over-rules courts and all other jurisdiction. It also cannot be entrenched; this is where all laws passed by the party in government can be changed by future parliaments. In recent years sovereignty of parliament has been a

In recent years, it has been increasingly apparent that European Parliament election turnout is on the decline, with just 35.6% of British citizens casting their vote in 2014. This is remarkably low, especially when viewed alongside other national decisions such as the referendum for Britain to leave the European Union, which received a staggering 72.2% turnout. However, this decline was not

Moreover, even when looking at the people who did vote and the outcome which was achieved, referendums can never truly represent everyone and meet society’s needs as a whole. This is because although a majority of people voted a certain way, there is usually a very slim margin between this and the

“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

Some judges in their obiter dicta have declared their inclination to disregard the Parliament’s legislative objectives, and therefore limit parliamentary sovereignty if the rule of law is vulnerable or if the circumstances demand “a principle established on a different hypothesis of constitutionalism” . They have also suggested that, while the British Constitution is dominated by parliamentary sovereignty, “The rule of law enforced by the courts is the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is based” . This represents a possibility of stretching the dominance of the rule of law in constitutional law so that it becomes more powerful than parliamentary sovereignty in the British Constitution .

The biggest challenge for parliamentary sovereignty clearly comes from the implications of the 1972 EC Act. Section 2 of the EC Act obliges the UK courts to give effect to Union law. That does not mean that the British courts have the power to strike down legislation but they have the power to set aside British law in a particular case and apply Union law instead. Tensions arose in the past in a number of cases in which Westminster legislated against Union law. Good examples of it are the Factortame cases in which Parliament finally had to accept the supremacy of EU (then EC) law. However, the question of whether the traditional rule that no parliament can bind its successors is still valid was not expressly answered

the United Kingdom unlike most other countries does not have a codified constitution to restrict the powers of the Parliament, the main check on power of the British Parliament is the sovereignty of the future parliaments. The European Union has been growing since its establishment and its growth has been considered a threat to the Parliamentary Sovereignty of the UK, since their joining of the EU in 1973. This essay will showcase the treaties, institutions, cases, and acts that have eroded the sovereignty of the UK Parliament and will conclude that the development of the EU will only further reduce the power of Parliamentary Sovereignty as long as the United Kingdom stays a member of the EU.