UK's Constitution: The Rule of Law and Parliamentary Sovereignty

the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament,”. Later however, he did admit that the description of parliamentary sovereignty has changed from what it was in the year 1885 and parliamentary sovereignty has undergone a change.

(England) was that the power of the legislature "... is limited to the public good of the

It was, therefore, seen as a breach of judicial independence. However following the creation of the Supreme Court in 2009, senior judges no longer sit in the House of Lords which means are free of political influence and decision making – and in effect – from the legislature as they can speak out against the government.

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

It is clear that the House of Lords, despite being flawed and in need of reform, does serve an important and unique role in Parliament that has a positive

Dicey’s version of Parliamentary sovereignty was defined as its “right to make or unmake any law whatever: and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.”

Now if one goes to the root of the logic behind the speaker ‘s speech one can understand that what the speaker believed was that parliamentary supremacy could not be infringed by any other outside body. It is worthy at this stage to note that belief of Parliamentary supremacy is a notion evolved in United Kingdom where there is no written constitution. In short Parliamentary supremacy can be defined as the power of parliament to make laws and unmake laws. The duty or business of the courts is to follow the legislation already enacted by Parliament and then interpret, adjudicate, redress or punish. Yet, though the courts do not make any legislation judgments of superior court are considered as binding

The Royal Prerogative can be deemed as a difficult concept to define as unlike other countries, the UK’s constitution is uncodified, where there is no single legal document which sets out the fundamental laws outlining how the state works. Therefore, the definition is open to interpretation, which is illustrated through Dicey’s and Blackstone’s explanations. William Blackstone, a renowned judge, offered the interpretation that the prerogative is a power that; “the king enjoys alone, in contradistinction to others, and not to those which he enjoys in common with any of his subjects.” However, a broader definition is offered by A.V. Dicey, an eminent constitutional scholar, who states; “the prerogative appears to be both historically and as a matter of actual fact, nothing else than the residue of arbitrary authority [..] left in the hands of the Crown.” Hence, through these contrasting views, it highlights how not having any written framework leaves a scope for the Executive, involving the Prime Minister and his ministers, to abuse the Prerogative Powers.

The term ‘strong judicial review’ can be understood by dividing it into two terms. The term ‘judicial review’ refers to the process that allows courts (1) to have substantial independence from other agents in political system, and (2) to be able to address and settle questions of constitutionality (in a constitutional or common law tradition). The term ‘strong’ refers to the specific type of process that holds that the provided resolutions from the courts are regarded as binding on all departments of government including legislative enactments (Michelman, 2004: pp.1407-1408). Theoretically, the ‘strong power’ of judges can be divided into two levels: the normal strong power

Parliamentary Sovereignty is the concept that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the United Kingdom. Kellerman, M. G. (2011) argues that since

The doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty stems from the Bill of Rights 1689 which effectively established a Constitutional Monarchy. This Bill had removed sovereignty from the monarchy alone- who had absolute power in areas such as the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary, and ensured that legislation could only be executed with Parliament’s agreement. Parliamentary Sovereignty is an integral principle in Britain’s uncodified Constitution. According to Dicey ‘”Parliament” has “the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of parliament’. Overall Dicey as a Theorist argues that Parliament is sovereign and can legislate in areas that it wishes, showing Parliament to be the highest source of law in the UK. A component of this doctrine is that Parliament is able to enact on any matter, including those

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.

The present constitution in the United Kingdom is unwritten. There has been much dispute as to whether or not a written constitution, as implemented by many other countries such as France and the United States of America, should also be adopted by the United Kingdom. The working mechanism of government is conditioned by a system of procedures, which regulate on one level of the principle organs of the state, whilst others govern the conduct of official business. Amid these usages are ones that have the position of a convention. Lord Wilson describes these conventions as ‘...political principles which regulate relations between the different parts of our constitution and the exercise of power but which do not have legal force.’ Since they do not have legal force, certain questions emerge, such as whether constitutional conventions should be codified, and whether their unclassified nature would permit such alteration. This essay will consider the arguments of the codification of constitutional conventions if a written constitution were to be implemented by the United Kingdom. Reasons proposing and opposing codifying conventions will be considered, specifically focusing on these foremost resolutions: legally enforcing codified conventions, allowing codified conventions to be regarded as non-legal rules, specify a selection of conventions to be codified, or quite simply leave them as they are, uncodified. This analysis will outline the varied views on codifying conventions

The relationship of law to the process of effective power is an entirely relevant datum. Critical, however, is belief that the formal foundations of the process of checks and balances of effective power arc reflected in constitutive arrangements. The relevance of

There is a real difficulty in accepting this because it would suggest judicial whim may reverse a commitment that was reached democratic consensus among all branches of government and wider society through public referendum. This formidable weakness of Sir William Wade’s argument supports viewing Parliamentary sovereignty as, at least partly, a legal concept. Although the theory that it is possible for the EU to place substantive limits to Parliamentary sovereignty accommodates the ‘voluntary’ contractual argument and ‘functional requirement of EU’ arguments that Lord Bridge presents, it is not without limitations either. It fits well with Lord Bridge’s alternative reasonings because they suggest that Parliament does have the power to limit its own powers and that the present conflict should be tackled on principled bases. This is important because legal phenomenon arise out of case law and albeit sparse, his judgment was the only one to address the topic. However, the persuasiveness of this argument is reduced by the fact that it simply leads us to another equally difficult question of what legal means set the width of its powers. The judges themselves seem to be in disagreement amongst each other about this as Lord Hope says ‘measures enacted by Parliament’ itself whereas Laws LJ says the unwritten constitution as interpreted by the