‘The tide of interest (among those who care about these things) in the idea of a written, codified constitution for the United Kingdom rises and falls. At the moment the tide is quite high, but certainly not high enough to flow into the estuaries of government policy making.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 14th May 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘The dramatic increase in public law and human rights cases coming before the UK Supreme Court (and the Appellate Committee before it) means that the UK’s top court is more frequently determining essentially socio-political questions. In addition, in recent years, the judiciary has pressed for a rather more expansive definition of judicial independence, with a greater emphasis on the institutional independence of the judiciary. This has tended to lead to more powerful leadership roles, for senior judges in particular.
UK Constitutional Law Association, 27th March 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘Frequently people think that there are only two ways address flexibility in a constitution: to legally entrench an entire document and to protect it with strong judicial oversight, or to have a political constitution and a sovereign parliament, which, in the words of A.V. Dicey, ‘has … the right to make or unmake any law whatever….’ One aspect of this sovereignty is that parliament cannot bind itself: ‘That Parliaments have more than once intended and endeavoured to pass Acts which should tie the hands of their successors is certain, but the endeavour has always ended in failure.’’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 25th March 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘On Friday 28 February Dan Byles’ Private Member’s Bill on Lords reform completed its Commons passage. It is now in the Lords, and will be sponsored by David Steel. The bill, which allows retirement from the Lords and expulsion of non-attendees and serious criminals, has been presented as a small, uncontroversial “housekeeping” measure. But as already argued in an earlier blog post, as currently drafted it would in fact introduce a very major change that would alter the Lords fundamentally, and in very undesirable ways.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 6th March 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org/blog
The British and Europe (PDF)
Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court
Cambridge Freshfields Annual Law Lecture, 12th February 2014
Source: www.supremecourt.uk
‘The Constitution Unit of University College London is today publishing a report which sets out a code of constitutional standards based on the reports of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. Since 2001 the Committee has made many recommendations in its reports, and the goal of this report was to codify these recommendations in order to make the Committee’s analysis of the constitution more accessible. The report, by Robert Hazell, Dawn Oliver and myself, contains a code of 126 constitutional standards, each of which is relevant to the legislative process, and each of which has been extracted from the 149 reports of the Constitution Committee that were reviewed. The standards are organised into five sections: the rule of law; delegated powers, delegated legislation and Henry VIII clauses; the separation of powers; individual rights; and parliamentary procedure.’
UK Constitutional Law Group, 8th January 2014
Source: www.ukconstitutionalgroup.org
‘Lord Judge delivered a lecture on the topic of “Constitutional Change: Unfinished Business”.’
UCL Constitutional Unit, 17th December 2013
Source: www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit
‘The Court of Appeal will soon be delivering judgment in a high-profile clash between the head of Thailand’s football federation, Dato Worawi Makudi, and Lord Triesman, the former chairman of the FA, which raises an issue of high constitutional importance.’
Sports Law Bulletin from Blackstone Chambers, 9th December 2013
Source: www.sportslawbulletin.org
‘The Supreme Court issued its decision in H v Lord Advocate (pdf) in 2012. The decision has been virtually ignored by constitutional scholars, but we believe it may be of great constitutional significance. In this post we explain why, starting with some background about constitutional statutes.’
UK Constitutional Law Group, 26th November 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org/blog
‘Confusion abounds about the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights following Mr Justice Mostyn’s recent judgment in R (AB) v Home Secretary (in which he appeared to say the Charter puts into UK law all sorts of new rights British governments had wanted to exclude) and Tuesday’s reaction by the Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling (who, it’s reported, is urgently trying to clarify whether the Charter ”applies in the UK”).’
Head of Legal, 21st November 2013
Source: www.headoflegal.com
“The intention of this post is a simple one: to assess the ways in which natural justice arguments have historically been raised in private law proceedings. By ‘natural justice’ I mean those common law principles requiring a fair procedure and an unbiased tribunal when powers are exercised. Ordinarily, of course, natural justice arguments arise in judicial review proceedings against public bodies in the Administrative Court or Upper Tribunal, usually when those bodies are exercising a statutory power. But to what extent can it be argued that a private body, in its private relations with private individuals, has acted unlawfully by making decisions in a procedurally unfair manner?”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 21st November 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
“In his recent annual lecture to the Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association, Lord Carnwath spoke to the title: ‘From judicial outrage to sliding scales—where next for Wednesbury?’ In this post, I outline some of the key points made in the lecture and offer some critical commentary on the approach to substantive judicial review commended by Carnwath.”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 20th November 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
From judicial outrage to sliding scales – where next for Wednesbury? (PDF)
Lord Carnwath
ALBA Annual Lecture, 12th November 2013
Source: www.supremecourt.gov.uk
“Recent events in the US have made us all aware of the essential vulnerability of modern political and economic systems. For a while it seemed as though the most powerful economy in the world was heading towards self-destruction, owing to the failure of a small number of senior politicians to reach a consensus that would avoid such an outcome. Now that disaster has been at least temporarily averted, it seems appropriate to try to analyse how this situation arose.”
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 28th October 2013
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
“Courts and commentators have sometimes said the administrative law doctrine of legitimate expectations is incoherent. They say that the various ways of acquiring a legitimate expectation do not hang together; nothing unifies them. For example, Lord Brown in Paponette v Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago agreed with a commentator’s description of the doctrine of legitimate expectations as a mere ‘patchwork’ and ‘little more than a mechanism to dispense palm-tree justice’. Both Richard Clayton and Mark Elliott have in the past favoured the ‘disaggregation’ of the doctrine.”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 18th October 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org/blog
“Writing in his magisterial new work, Human Rights and the UK Supreme Court, Professor Brice Dickson noted that the Human Rights Act had created ‘an internationalized system of human rights protection rather than a constitutional one.’ Indeed, there had been a marked resistance on the part of the Supreme Court to use the common law to achieve the same goal of human rights protection. In Osborn v The Parole Board the Supreme Court seemed to resile from this position.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 13th October 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“In a recent interview in The Spectator, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling MP, was given another opportunity to recite the now characteristic Tory Siren call relating to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Strasbourg court.”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 30th September 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
“This is a major initiative being undertaken by LSE Law Department and the LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) together with Democratic Audit UK and LSE Public Policy Group.”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 28th September 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
“There is a very good article in the most recent edition of the Law Quarterly Review. It is by Rodney Brazier, and is concerned with the nature and mechanics of royal assent. It is a fascinating read, and, as with all Brazier’s work, characterised by a dry wit. There is, however, one claim, made almost in passing, that I think is mistaken. Brazier addresses the question of when, if ever, a monarch could properly refuse to give assent to legislation. He rightly concludes that it is almost impossible to imagine situations in which assent should be refused, but leaves open the possibility that it might be appropriate for the Monarch to refuse assent if advised to do so by her Ministers. In suggesting that royal assent could be refused on ministerial advice Brazier is not alone. The assertion has also been made by Geoffrey Marshall in Constitutional Conventions, and Adam Tomkins in Public Law – and may, for all I know, have been made by others, too. On the other hand, Anne Twomey (in an article in Public Law in 2006) argued that the issue remains open, and gives a number of examples, mostly from Australia, which suggest the Monarch need not accept the advice of her Ministers to refuse assent. So which position is correct? If the Prime Minister (or the Cabinet, collectively) advised the Queen to refuse to give her assent to legislation, what, constitutionally, should she do?”
UK Constitutional Law Group, 25th September 2013
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
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